The Trick is On You
by piper2210
Summary: Faberry fic set sometime in season 2. Quinn thought of a new way to torture Rachel, let's hope it won't backfire.
1. Part 1

**Part 1**

There were a few things that she wanted to accomplish this junior year: 1) get her pre-pregnancy body back, 2) get back on top of the social hierarchy, 3) get Santana to back off from whatever duel they're having, and, most importantly, 4) find new ways to torture Rachel. She already got number 1 under control now that she's back in the Cheerios. Number 2 was also secured now that she's the Head Cheerio and with a new quarterback boyfriend. Number 3 was going well too because she can ordered Santana around now that she has the power and control. As for number 4, that's something that she's been thinking a lot these days. Some might say that it almost consumed her, but she loved being passionate about things, and was it so wrong to pour that passion towards torturing Rachel? It's just that, there's something about that girl that aggravate her. She can't really put her foot in it; maybe it's the way she talks, maybe she's still pissed that Rachel had managed to steal Finn right under her nose, maybe she's also irritated that Puck somehow liked her, or maybe she's annoyed for her existence. Or maybe she's just bothered that somehow she always managed to agree to do whatever Rachel asked her to do. Of all the silly things that she had done, she still can't understand why she would agree to ask Finn if he wanted to get back together just because Rachel asked her to. Who in their sensible mind would open themselves up for a possible rejection? Thinking about that strengthen her resolved, _I need to make Rachel's life a living hell_. She had a chance a few weeks ago when Rachel asked her to perform that duet with Sam. She could have said no, but for some reason she did it anyway. What's wrong with her?

Quinn was currently in the gym. Some guys were playing basketball but she wasn't paying attention. She had her laptop on and making full use of the school wi-fi to view cute animal videos in YouTube. That's how she liked to spend her time before Cheerios practice. Somehow her mind brought her back to Rachel and she decided to check Rachel's MySpace page. Occasionally she would check Rachel's page to see if she posted any new videos. Rachel didn't post as often as before, not since she had a boyfriend. Quinn wasn't sure which one annoyed her more, that Rachel's too busy with Finn to post new videos or that Rachel's with Finn. Her face lighted up when she saw there's a new video. She was about to view it when Santana joined her.

"Hey Q, what are you doing?"

"Checking out Berry's page."

Santana sat next to her and they watched the video. Rachel was singing 'I'd Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Happy With Somebody Else)'. They were both laughing at Rachel the whole time; laughing at her clothes, laughing at her facial expression, laughing at everything. It seemed everything about Rachel was laughable. Rachel's performance was amazing though, but Quinn and Santana wouldn't admit it to each other.

Quinn commented on the video under her username, Sky Splits: 'Somewhere a dog dies listening to your voice.' Santana laughed even louder reading that.

"Is anyone else even watching her videos?" Santana wondered.

They browsed through her other videos; they had only a few hits and some comments saying they're good. Quinn had commented on all her videos but they've all been deleted. Her comments had all been nasty, so it's no wonder that Rachel deleted them. She's surprised that Rachel had never said anything to her about that.

"She's only doing this for attention. That Idiot Boy apparently is not giving her enough. I bet she'd dumped him as soon as someone else lavishes her with all the attention," Quinn said.

"Maybe we can hire someone to pretend to like her," Santana started scheming.

"Nah, I don't want to waste my money on this."

Suddenly an idea came into Quinn's head, it's like you can see a light bulb above her head. She instantly logged out and signed up for a new account. She created a new username, 'Arnstein'.

"Who's Arnstein?"

"It's a character from Funny Girl."

"How come you know so much about Funny Girl?"

"I like that movie," Quinn stated, but instantly shot Santana a look that said not to make any comment about that.

"So what are you going to do?"

"You'll see."

She went back to Rachel's page under the new username and left a comment: 'You're very talented. I hope you'll post more soon.'

After she submitted the comment, she turned to Santana, "Now we'll just wait and see. If Berry is as desperate as she is for attention, it'll be hook, line, and sinker."

Santana smirked, "What are you planning to do?"

"I'll … well, 'Arnstein' will befriend her, shower her with compliments, make her feel special, get her to spill her deepest darkest secret, and one fine day, we'll use that against her and she wouldn't even know what hit her." Quinn's eyes were gleaming, she's proud of her plan. "And if 'Arnstein' play their cards right, 'Arnstein' might be able to persuade her to dump Finn. And then I can get Finn back under my control, and she'll be left all alone."

"Woah Q, when you have a brilliant evil plan, you have a brilliant evil plan," Santana was impressed. "But you already have Sam, why do you want Finn?"

Quinn quirked her eyebrows, "Why have one when you can have two?" Santana shook her head. She had to hand it to Quinn, that girl was a great manipulator.

Santana left the gym to get ready for Cheerios practice but Quinn stayed for a little bit more. After Santana left, Quinn watched the video again, but this time she's not laughing.

_**Author's Notes:**__ I thought of taking a break from writing because I miss reading other Faberry fics, but I have this idea in my head. Please tell me what you think._


	2. Part 2

**Part 2**

Rachel had a lot to achieve this junior year. Nationals were going to be in New York City and she aimed to be there, well, with all the Glee Club members of course, but she's not sure if anyone else had that same motivation as her. That would be one of the things she needed to do then, she needed to inspire them to work as hard as her. She's also in a serious relationship and she needed to be attentive to that. There were a lot of things to juggle: being an A student, Glee Club, Finn, and not to mention all other clubs that she's still active in. But she's Rachel Berry, she can achieve greatness in all of them.

One of the things she wanted to get back into was posting her singing video in MySpace. She had not been that active ever since she was pursuing Finn, but now that she had secured him, it's time to put more effort into this. She needed to be recognized. Sure she didn't get that many hits yet, but someday the right person would see it and show it to another right person and before she knew it, she would get a call from Broadway. Okay, maybe it won't be as simple as that, but one can dream. Still, she needed to explore all possible ways to get out of this small town.

She intended to post at least one video every week. Some of her videos have been getting good comments. Of course there were always not-so-nice ones; some were from strangers and some from other students in school. She endured all that. She knew this was just the beginning. One day she will be famous and it would be even worse than this. So she took all this as personality building.

Finn just dropped her off from school. The first thing she did when she walk into her room was turning on her laptop and logging in to her MySpace page. She just posted a new video last night, so she's quite eager to read what people have to say. She saw there's a comment from Sky Splits. It amused her greatly that Quinn would take the time to watch her videos and leave nasty comments. In the beginning, it made her sad reading those remarks. Then from sad, it became an annoyance because she had to delete the comments. But then from annoyance it became amusement. That's why she never said anything to Quinn. Sometimes her videos only had one hit and one comment from none other than Quinn. She simply can't understand what Quinn motive was. She figured Quinn was one of those cyber bullies. Well, in her case, Quinn's also her school bully. She hardly saw Quinn bullying other kids except for her. Maybe Quinn was the kind who liked to pick their victims and torture them until they went mad, and only then she would move to the next one. Whatever was Quinn's intention, she's determined not to fall for it. Rachel was going to prove just how strong she was. Besides Quinn's comments had never been as vicious as other comments that she had gotten.

She read the next comment. It's from a user called 'Arnstein'. She thought it must be someone that loved Funny Girl too. She was singing a song from that movie in the video. It looked like someone had taken a liking to her singing, it made her smile. _Hmm, maybe I don't have to wait till next week to post a new song_. She loved when someone actually paid attention to her singing. Finn had never bothered to view her videos even though she had mentioned it a few times. She's given up on telling him again. But it's okay, he's not interested in her videos and she's not interested in his video games, so they're even.

She read that comment over and over. In her head, she can hear Omar Sharif's voice telling her, "You're very talented." She shook her head back to reality. She moved the mouse pointer to hover over the reply button, and she tapped her finger on the mouse, contemplating on whether to reply or not. She finally clicked the button. She figured there's no harm in saying thank you to someone who actually appreciated her talent.

She wrote, 'Thank you for your kind words. I love your username :-) I haven't decided what song I should do next. Any suggestion?'

She read that a few times. It seemed harmless enough. She really didn't know what song to sing next and it's so much easier if someone gave a suggestion. This wasn't the first time that she replied to the commenter. Sometimes they would reply but disappeared after a few weeks and some wrote back with something vulgar, thinking that she wanted something else. She really hoped Arnstein wasn't the latter. _No, with that name, Arnstein must be a perfect gentleman_. She smiled and started fantasizing how Arnstein looked like. She imagined him … then she stopped herself, _it could be a girl, it's the Internet, could be anything._ She submitted her reply and it took her back to her video page. Her smile faltered when she saw Quinn's comment again. She quickly deleted it. Some would wonder why she hasn't blocked Quinn yet. She wondered too, but deep down she knew why. It's because she liked the attention, even if it's the wrong kind of attention.

Her phone rang and it was Finn. She closed her laptop and answered the phone with a smile, Arnstein temporarily forgotten from her mind.


	3. Part 3

_**Author's Notes: **__I don't have a MySpace account, so I don't really know how it works. I hope everything they did is possible :-)_

**Part 3**

When Quinn got home after Cheerios practice, she logged on to Arnstein's MySpace page instantly. She thought that she had to add some more information to Arnstein's profile to make it more believable. She even used Omar Sharif's picture as Arnstein's profile pic, but she didn't put in the gender. She applied some theme to the profile page; she didn't want to look like a spammer. Once satisfied with her work, she got ready for dinner.

Later that night, Quinn was doing her homework in her room, but she got bored quickly. She went online to check out some music video clips but got bored of that too. She logged on to Arnstein's page and saw that Rachel sent a message.

_Hah! I knew that name is the key. She wanted suggestion? Vain much? Urgh!_

Quinn grimaced at Rachel's cockiness. But in order for her plan to work, she needed to play nice and be extra patient. She sat back on her chair and thought of songs that Rachel hasn't performed and the kind of songs that would suit her. She thought any songs by Barbra Streisand were a safe bet, so she replied, 'How about The Way We Were?'

After she sent the message, she shut down her laptop. She had a lot of homework to complete and she didn't need any more distraction.

* * *

Rachel was getting ready for bed but decided to check her MySpace page one more time to see if there's anything new. She got excited when she saw there was a message from Arnstein.

_Ooh! Good song choice! Okay, I just need to change my top, I can't wear my pjs._

Rachel quickly put on a nice top and shot the video from the waist up. She didn't even need to practice; she remembered all the words by heart. She did it in just one take and uploaded the video. She's quite happy with the result.

She thought about it for a bit, and then decided to send Arnstein a friend request. Again she thought, what harm can it do?

* * *

The next day in school, Quinn approached Santana at her locker.

"She replied?" Quinn smiled evilly.

"Who?" Santana was confused.

"RuPaul."

Santana laughed loudly, "Oh My God! She did? What a loser. What did she say?"

"She asked if Arnstein has any suggestion for what song she should sing next."

Santana smirked, "So what did you do?"

"I replied," Quinn shrugged. The bell rang to mark the beginning of the first period. "We'll check later if she posted anything. Meet me at the gym after school. Also, can you please don't tell anyone about this? The plan works better if no one else knows."

Santana shot her a 'who would I tell?' look.

"You know who I'm talking about. And I don't think she'll like this."

* * *

Quinn just logged on to Arnstein's page when Santana joined her at the gym.

"Look at that, she wants to add you to her Friend Space," Santana was mocking Rachel.

They both giggled madly.

"I told you, hook, line, and sinker. She's so desperate for attention." Quinn clicked on the 'accept' button. "This is so much easier than I thought." Quinn was about to view Rachel's video when she thought, "I can't view now as Arnstein, because then my comment and Arnstein's will be too close together. I'll do this later at home."

Santana nodded in agreement. She logged out from Arnstein and logged back in as Sky Splits and they watched the video. Quinn can't believe how easy it was to get Rachel to do what she asked her to do. Again they were laughing at everything Rachel did. Even the basketball players were curious on what they were watching, but they didn't dare join them. They tried once to sit next to Quinn when she was watching something on her laptop. They swore that from then on, they would keep their distance from her if they want to keep all their body parts intact.

Quinn commented on Rachel's video, 'How many more dogs must suffer from your singing?'

She closed her laptop because it's time for their Cheerios practice and they had to get moving.

* * *

Quinn was quite eager to go home after the practice. She can't wait to log in as Arnstein and see what kind of things she can view now that they're 'friends'. She was quite disappointed though because there wasn't anything much there. She watched Rachel's latest video again. She was proud of herself for picking the right song for Rachel to sing. She commented, as Arnstein, 'That's a perfect song for you, and you sang it so effortlessly. How about something from West Side Story?'

Her doorbell rang signalling Sam's presence. She asked him to come around 5 for some Bible study. She left the room without signing off from the page.

* * *

Rachel came home around 8; she just had dinner at Finn's house. It was pleasant, Carol seemed to prefer her than Quinn, and she loved being compared to Quinn and coming up on top. She went online instantly to check the comments on her videos. Rachel rolled her eyes at Quinn's comment and deleted it. She smiled happily at Arnstein's comment. There were some other nice comments like 'nice voice' and 'good performance'.

She was about to reply to the comment when she saw that Arnstein was online. She felt like striking a conversation, besides there were a lot of songs from West Side Story.

* * *

Quinn was about to log out from MySpace when she received an IM from Rachel.

'Hi.'

Quinn felt like she was caught in the act, like Rachel can see that it was her, which was pretty silly because she was still logged in as Arnstein. She just looked at the screen. Another message came.

'I hope I'm not bothering you.'

Quinn looked at the screen for a few more seconds and decided to reply. _Maybe this will fasten the process a bit._

'Hi. No, it's no bother.'

"Oh good. I just read your comment on my video. Thank you for the compliment.'

Quinn frowned, _Rachel's too easy_. 'It's nothing. You're really good, that's all.'

'So, any particular song from West Side Story?'

Quinn thought and she picked her favorite song from the movie, 'America?'

'That's a good one. Guess I have to put on my Puerto Rican accent :-) Maybe in the next few days.'

'Okay.'

'Thank you for your suggestion.'

'No problem. I'll look forward to your next video then. I have to go now.'

'Okay, see you next time.'

'Bye.'

Quinn quickly logged out. She felt uncomfortable chatting with Rachel while pretending to be someone else, someone that's actually nice to Rachel.


	4. Part 4

**Part 4**

They had Glee Club meeting the next day in school. Mr Schue separated them for another 'boys vs. girls' competition. The boys were in another classroom while the girls were in the choir room, both discussing the songs they should perform. Santana and Quinn stay seated at the back while all the other girls were sitting or standing around the piano. While everybody else was busy discussing the competition, they were having their own private conversation.

"Anything interesting happened?"

"We had a chat."

"What? You …" Santana lowered her voice and looked at the other girls, but none of them heard their conversation, "I mean 'A' and … 'B'?"

Quinn wondered what Santana was on about and she quickly picked up the initials.

"Yes. B wanted to know what song for next time. Demanding much, eh?"

They giggled at the back while casting Rachel a look, but Rachel didn't notice. She was animatedly discussing songs with Mercedes and Tina, while Brittany tried to braid Tina's hair.

"So what did you say?"

"I told B to sing America."

"From West Side Story?" Santana looked furious.

"Yes."

"How could you do that? That's my song!"

"It's not anyone's song. Besides it's not like she's going to perform it anywhere, it's just in her page."

"If we're doing a production of West Side Story one day, that will be my song. I don't want people to compare us," Santana sulked.

"Don't be ridiculous. No one else is going to see that video anyway. Besides, isn't it good because then you can see how she did and you can do something better?"

Quinn had a point but Santana didn't say anything.

"Are you two going to join in this discussion?" Rachel was annoyed at them for not taking part.

"What for? You're going to overrule our ideas anyway," Santana said sarcastically.

"Well, if you're not participating in this discussion, I won't be responsible for your discontentment later," Rachel said firmly.

Santana and Quinn exchanged looks and walked over to the piano to join the other girls.

* * *

It was Sunday night. Quinn was practising the dance moves in her room for the song they were going to perform next Wednesday for the boys vs. girls' competition. It would be an interesting performance; for one thing, they would all be wearing leather. She didn't even own any leather jacket. Luckily she had a cousin who was the same size as her and owned lots of leather. So she put on the whole costume, leather jacket, leather pants and leather stiletto shoes, to practice her dance move. Her movement was a bit restricted at first, but once she got used to it, she liked how badass she look. Suddenly she thought how Rachel would look with her attire. With that thought in mind, she logged on to Arnstein's page, just to see if Rachel had posted her video. It's been a few days since they had that chat, but she's disappointed because there's still nothing.

She was changing to her regular clothes when she heard the beep that indicated someone had sent an IM. It was Rachel.

'Hi. I was about to post my video and since you're online, maybe you would like to view it now.'

Quinn smiled, 'Yeah, sure.'

'Okay, let me upload it.'

A few minutes later Rachel sent another message.

'It's uploaded. You can check it now.'

Quinn wanted to laugh at Rachel's eagerness. She viewed the video but quickly got annoyed because Finn was in the video too. Rachel started the video by saying that she got her boyfriend to sing the boy part. Then Finn waved at the camera and Quinn wanted to hurl. She quickly regretted her song choice and made a mental note for her next song pick.

After the song ended, she felt like writing nasty comments, but she reminded herself that she's Arnstein at the moment. Quinn didn't move in the next few minutes, she just stared at the screen.

Rachel sent another message, 'So, what do you think?'

Quinn thought of not replying, but she needed to keep this game up.

'It's really good. I think you did great but the boy, not so much.'

'Yeah, I know. My boyfriend's not really trying. He's not into Broadway songs.'

'Is he still there?' Quinn deleted that. 'How long have you guys been dating?' She deleted that too. 'Is he a singer too?' Sent.

"He's in the Glee Club with me, but he also plays football.'

'Should you be chatting with me now? Wouldn't he mind?'

'Oh no, he's no longer here. I recorded that earlier today. It's pretty late now for him to stay. My dads wouldn't like it.'

Quinn pretended not to know any of this information, 'Your dads?'

'Yes, I have two dads.'

'That's interesting. How does that work?'

'One of them is my biological father and I had a surrogate mom.'

Quinn wanted to ask more about Shelby, but it's too soon. She was amused at how easy it was for Rachel to divulge such information, but then Rachel was never one to be ashamed of her parentage. 'So are your dads together?'

'Yes. Is that a problem?'

'No. I just wanted to be sure what you meant.' They were quiet for a few minutes. 'Don't you have school tomorrow?'

'Yes. Actually I was about to practice this song that we're going to perform for the Glee Club. We're doing a competition, boys vs. girls.'

'What song?'

'We're doing a mash-up of Living On A Prayer and Start Me Up.'

'That's interesting. Are you singing the whole song?'

'I'm singing Living On A Prayer and Mercedes will sing Start Me Up. The other girls are backing us up.'

'So are you the main singer in the club?'

'Well … kind of. But it's because I have the best voice.'

Quinn scoffed.

'Okay, Mercedes is really good too. And Kurt too, I suppose. Fine, I do think Santana has a great voice too, but I wouldn't want to admit that to her. She'll get too cocky and use that against me.'

Quinn smiled, she found an entry. 'It sounds like you don't really like Santana.'

'It's not that I don't like her. I don't like to hold any grudges against people, but sometimes it seems that she's always trying to find ways to make me angry. I don't understand why. She's popular and beautiful, why would she have anything against me?'

'Maybe she's jealous of you.'

'Why would she be jealous of me?'

'Maybe she likes your boyfriend.'

'No. I don't think Santana's into Finn.'

'How can you be so sure?'

'She never tried to pursue him before. Sure they went out on a date, but nothing happened.'

Quinn laughed. _'Nothing happened'? Santana slept with Finn, that's what happened. Didn't she know?_

'How about you? Do you have school tomorrow? I mean, I don't know how old you are. You might be some old man :-)'

'Yes, I do have school tomorrow.'

'How old are you?'

'Going to be 17.'

'Where are you from?'

'I'm from a small town.'

'Me too. I'm from Lima. There are only about 32000 people here. Where do you live?'

'Sorry, I can't tell you that. It's a very small town, words get around fast.'

'It's okay. You don't have to tell me. Anyway, I really need to start practicing the song. It's been nice talking to you.'

'Likewise.'

'Maybe we can do this some other time.'

'Sure. Good night then. Good luck in the competition.'

'Thank you. Good night. Bye.'

Rachel logged out right after. Quinn thought how weird it was to chat with Rachel, it's so relax and carefree. They had never talked like that in school. Every time they talked it was always so tense. Although she can't believe how naïve and gullible Rachel was. She didn't even need to put that much effort to get her to talk. Rachel was like one of those girls that are easily persuaded by sex predators. _How could Finn not protect her from this?_ Quinn smiled deviously; she might be able to use this to push Rachel away from Finn.

Quinn was already thinking on what she needed to do next, but first, Arnstein needed to lavish Rachel with compliment. She commented on Rachel's video, 'You did a great Puerto Rican accent and your performance is amazing, although the boy needs lots of work :-)'


	5. Part 5

**Part 5**

"So what's the exciting news today?" Santana asked while taking a seat next to Quinn at the gym.

"She posted that 'America' video and guess who joined her?"

"Orca McTubbers?"

Quinn chuckled at Santana's nickname for Finn, "Yep." Santana made a face, "and it was as bad as you thought."

Quinn played the video, although this time they were laughing at Finn mostly. She posted her comment afterwards, 'One of you need to get sterilized, preferably both.'

"Urgh, that's terrible accent," Santana frowned.

"We had a longer chat last night," Quinn informed Santana.

"What did she say?"

Quinn thought of telling Santana that Rachel thought she was a great singer too, but decided not to because Rachel was right, Santana would get too cocky. "She mentioned some of us because she talked about the competition in Glee Club, and somehow we got to talking about you. She said she can't understand why you are constantly trying to make her angry. So I gave the idea that maybe you're jealous of her because you want Finn."

"What? I so do not want Lumps-The-Clown!"

"That's not the point. Remember, we're trying to get them to break up. I need to plant some doubts first."

Santana thought about it, "Do you want me to try to come on to him?"

"Yeah, let's see if he takes the bait. Anyway, she still doesn't know that you slept with Finn."

"Urgh, please don't remind me," Santana said with a disgusted look, "Although, I could use that. It will drive her insane if she finds out that I took Finn's virginity." They laughed at that. "Do you think they've slept together?"

Quinn became tense, "I don't know. I hope not."

* * *

Rachel had a blast at school. Even though they didn't win, at least none of them won the competition. She was very proud of the girls' number and how hot they all look in leather. She felt like talking to someone about it, so she went online and saw that Arnstein was online too.

'Hi. How are you?'

'Pretty good, all things considered.'

'We had that competition today.'

'Did you win?'

'No :-( But then none of us win.'

'What happened?'

'The boys in our club did this stupid thing and they used their song to apologize to a teacher. So in the end, no one was declared a winner.'

'Maybe they're trying to sabotage the girls from winning.'

'Hmm, quite possible. I do think our performance was better.'

'And your boyfriend's in the team too, right?'

'Yeah, he's part of the boys who did that stupid thing, but I don't want to talk about it.'

'Okay. So what's next for your club?'

'We're going to have the Sectionals at the end of the month. Mr Schue, that's our Glee Club teacher, doesn't have anything planned yet. So I'm going to list all the songs that will be suitable for my solo.'

'That's in a few weeks and he still didn't have anything planned?'

'Maybe he thinks we perform better under pressure. What about you? Do you sing?'

'Occasionally. I'm not that good of a singer.'

'With help, I'm sure you can be a better singer. Anyway, what's your favourite musical?'

'Broadway or movie?'

'Both.'

'I really like Rent. So that's the answer to both.'

'So you're into the modern musicals. It's funny though, Maureen actually looks like my mom. I mean my surrogate mother.'

'She must be pretty then. Do you look like her?'

'Some people said we look alike. It makes it harder sometimes.'

'Why?'

'I don't feel like talking about this now.'

'Okay. What about you? What's your favourite?'

'Funny Girl for both.'

'So predictable.'

'How can it be predictable when you don't really know me yet?'

'You sang a lot of songs from that movie. And you must have taken a liking to the name Arnstein.'

Rachel rolled her eyes, 'Cocky much?'

'Just stating the obvious.'

Rachel snorted, 'Well, just to make it clear, I have a boyfriend and I'm here only for friendship. You know, in case you have other things in mind.'

'What makes you think I'm even mildly interested in something else?'

'Because that's what happened in MySpace. It's pretty frustrating when all I want is to talk with likeminded people.'

'Well, you have nothing to worry about. Idina Menzel is not my type.'

'Actually I don't even know if you're a guy or a girl. Can I know?'

'Does it matter?'

'I guess not, but I'm curious none the less.'

'Why? Does it bother you if you're chatting with a girl that might or might not be interested in you?'

'I thought Idina Menzel's not your type.'

'Just hypothetical question.'

'Then the hypothetical answer is, your gender doesn't bother me. You might be transgender and I'm okay with that.'

'So you are open to a relationship with someone who is transgender?'

'I never thought about it, but I suppose so. Besides it's not the gender that matters, it's the person.'

'I think you won't really know until you're in the situation.'

'True.'

'Doesn't it scare you that right now you might be talking to some creepy person? I'm sure you've read all the stories about how girls get lured and ended up dead.'

'Now that you mentioned it, it might be a bit scary.'

'Sorry, I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just saying that you have to be careful. Shouldn't your boyfriend be worried about you chatting with a random stranger?'

'No, he's not paying attention much to this.'

'Maybe he should.'

'Shouldn't you be worried too? How do you know that it was me in the videos? I could have taken the videos from somewhere else, claimed it as mine to entice people so that I can steal all their money.'

'If that's your aim, shouldn't you post videos that are more alluring?'

Rachel pouted, 'Are you saying that I'm not alluring enough?'

'Not with what you're wearing.'

'What's wrong with it? My boyfriend likes it.'

'I think he likes what's underneath it.'

Rachel frowned. She didn't even know what to reply to that. The silence went on for a few minutes, and then she received another message.

'Sorry, I was out of line. What matters is, if you're comfortable, you shouldn't need to change for anyone.'

'That's true.'

'Hey, I better go. I have some more homework to do. Sorry if I've offended or scared you in any way.'

'No, that's fine. I like how forward you are. Good night. Have a nice day tomorrow.'

'You too. Good night.'

* * *

Quinn didn't know what she was thinking. One minute she tried to flirt with Rachel and the next minute she tried to scare her. Sometimes she typed whatever that came up in her mind and sent it without even thinking of them properly, which made the chatting session a combination of Quinn and Arnstein. She hoped that it won't turn Rachel off from talking to Arnstein.

* * *

The next day Quinn was walking through the school hallway and she saw that Rachel was having a heated conversation with Finn at his locker. She was curious on what they were arguing about. They looked like they're too caught up in the argument to notice people around them. She walked slowly and caught some part of the conversation.

"Last time you called me sad-clown hooker when I was trying to be sexy, and then there was a time that you laughed when Santana insulted what I was wearing. Why does it matter what I wear? If I like how I look isn't that all that matters?"

"I don't get it. Why are you bringing that up again? I thought we're over that."

"No, we were never over that. We never even talked about it because I was afraid that you'll leave if I brought that up."

"I just don't understand why you're asking me all of this suddenly. It's like you're trying to pick a fight."

Quinn didn't hear the rest of the conversation, but it didn't matter. They were fighting over something she said last night. She smirked. At this rate, Finn would get dumped sometime soon.


	6. Part 6

**Part 6**

Quinn was frustrated with the progress, as in the lack of progress. She thought that Rachel would break up with Finn soon enough, but it looked like Rachel was still hanging on to him. She needed to do something to quicken the process. They were currently in the middle of Burt and Carol's wedding. The ceremony hasn't started yet, so she pulled Santana to the side.

"I think you need to find Finn and flirt with him," Quinn was looking at Rachel who was talking with Mercedes and Kurt.

"Right now?" Santana was looking at Brittany and Artie.

"Yeah. Now's the perfect time. He's probably getting ready."

Santana crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. She sighed heavily and proceeded to find Finn.

Santana came back about 15 minutes later.

"It's kind of hard to flirt with him without throwing insults at both of them, so I'm not sure it's working," Santana informed Quinn.

"What happened?"

"I told him that it would be better to tell everyone that we did it to increase his coolness factor, but he's afraid that Rachel would break up with him if she finds out."

Quinn smiled, "Then that's exactly what you need to do."

* * *

Rachel was furious with Mr Schue's decision of not giving her a solo for Sectionals. She understood that he wanted to give the others a chance to be front and center, but she thought the aim was to win, and she played an important part in winning. On top of that, she just found out that Finn slept with Santana and that he had been lying to her all this time. She knew she shouldn't be that angry at him because it happened when they weren't together, but Finn should have been honest with her.

She slummed on her chair while waiting for someone to come online. Finn had been calling her but she wasn't in the mood to talk, not with him. Right now, she just wanted to talk to someone that has no connection to all of this, someone that she can be comfortable with.

Her face lighted up when she saw the green light next to Arnstein's name.

'Hi.' Rachel sent an IM.

'Hi. How have you been? I haven't seen you online for a while.'

'Yeah, I've been busy with a lot of things. First there was a substitute teacher that I thought wanted to destroy my life but it turned out she's okay, and then there was a wedding where we had to perform. Now we're preparing for Sectionals.'

'How's that going? What song are you going to sing?'

'I don't have a solo.'

'Sorry, that's a bummer. Why didn't you get one?'

'Because Mr Schue thinks that now's the right time to shine the lights on others.'

'So who got to sing then?'

'Quinn and Sam will sing the first song. They're okay, but I don't think they have the strong voice to showcase our club. Mr Schue picked them because they won the duets competition, but the only reason they won that competition was because I threw the competition and Finn and I voted for them.'

'Why did you do that?'

'It's because I want Sam to feel welcome, so that he will stick around. We tend to not have enough members.'

'So you don't think they have good enough voice to win the competition?'

'Well, I think Sam and Finn are about the same, and Quinn, she does have a nice alto and a sweet voice, and sometimes her voice can get husky which can be quite sexy. I'm sure the judges will be instantly charmed by her, so I guess that's a plus.'

'Why? Is she that pretty?'

'Oh yeah. She's beautiful. And I think she looks even prettier if she doesn't scowl so much.'

'Who else is singing?'

'I don't know yet. We'll have our two best dancers performing too. But you know what makes this day even worse? That you were right about Santana and Finn, something happened between them. They slept together! I'm so angry at him.'

'Sorry to hear that. Did he cheat on you?'

'No, it happened when we weren't together, but the fact is that he lied to me. Of all people, why Santana? _The_ Santana that likes to bully me and insult me. If it's Quinn, I understand.'

'How so?'

'They used to date, and besides it's Quinn. Quinn sometimes would bully me too, but I've seen the softness in her. She has a lot going on and in some ways I understand her. Besides she's the prettiest girl in school, who wouldn't want to sleep with her?'

'Hmm.'

'What should I do?'

'With which one?'

'I guess there's nothing I can do with Sectionals now. Maybe I'll try to protest but Mr Schue can be firm with his decision. But what should I do with Finn?'

'Do you love him?'

'I do. I think so. I don't know. Sometimes people can confuse love with comfort. He's my first serious boyfriend. He's the school quarterback, the popular boy, and he chose to be with me instead of Quinn. I can't think of anyone that would do that. If it were me, I wouldn't choose me over Quinn, haha.'

'Maybe you should wait a few days, get some time off from him and see how you feel. Think why it hurts so much to know that he slept with someone else, that he lied to you, and see whether you can accept him this way, or if it's better for you to be on your own. I think you're a pretty girl and I'm sure a lot of guys are lining up for you. Either you don't see it or they're too blind to not see you yet. Maybe you're too focusing on one person that you're not opening yourself up for something better.'

Rachel smiled for the first time today, 'Thanks for the advice. You really know how to make me feel better. I'm sorry that I unload all of this on you. I hardly know anything about you, but yet it feels so easy to talk to you.'

'Maybe we were friends in past life.'

'Maybe. So what can you tell me about your day?'

'I got selected to represent our school for a competition, so I'm pretty excited about that. I have represented the school for other competitions, but this one's different.'

'What competition?'

'Sorry, can't really tell you. Like I said, I come from a small town; even the smallest information can give away too many things. I can get into trouble for this.'

'Okay. '

'Anyway, I have to go now. I'm really sorry for what happened to you today. But you will be okay again someday.'

'Thank you again. Good night then.'

'Good night.'

* * *

Quinn didn't know what to feel. Some parts of her were angry that Rachel actually threw the competition so that she can win, but then the other parts of her were surprised and flattered with everything that Rachel said about her. She never knew that Rachel looked at her that way. Anyway, she thought that Arnstein played the part really well tonight.

* * *

Christmas was approaching fast. They were still on a high for winning Sectionals. Currently they were in the choir room to decorate the Christmas tree. Ever since their last conversation, Quinn had been observing Rachel more and more, but she did it very discreetly. Rachel was still with Finn but they had been distant. She noticed that Rachel always had that faraway look, like she's thinking of something. She didn't look particularly sad but she wasn't her happy self either.

Santana was annoyed that Rachel didn't respond more aggressively to the news. She thought that Rachel would have a breakdown of some sort and would give up on Glee. She had been asking Quinn if there were any information that she can use but Quinn didn't have anything juicy to tell.

Quinn later found out that Rachel broke up with Finn when they were picking up the Christmas tree for the Glee Club and Finn had left her there. She thought that Finn was a big jerk for doing that, but she also felt elated that her plan was working. Finn would be crawling back to her in no time.

* * *

It had become a habit for Quinn to log on to Arnstein's page. She didn't even check her own page anymore, besides Rachel hasn't posted any new videos for a while. When she heard the IM beeping sound, she jumped off her bed and headed to her study table.

'Hi.' Rachel had sent a message.

'Hi. How have you been? I hope you're feeling better.'

'Yes, I am actually. Besides tis the season and all, not that I'm celebrating it, I'm Jewish.'

'Happy Hanukah to you then.'

'Thank you. Do you celebrate Christmas?'

'Yes. I've been busy with Christmas shopping and decorating.'

'Must be nice.'

'How are things with you and your boyfriend?'

'I broke up with him last week.'

'Oh, sorry about that.'

'No, it's fine. I've thought about it long and hard and I think it's the right thing to do.'

'Are you okay?'

'Well, I'm still sad about it. Even though I was the one who broke up with him, it's still hard to let go of your first love, or whatever it was. I just hope that we can still be friends. I don't want things to be awkward in the club.'

'Now you can focus on yourself.'

'Exactly. How about you? Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?'

'It depends.'

'On what?'

'On who's asking. Hey, my mom's calling me downstairs.'

'Is that your way of avoiding the question?'

'No, I really mean that my mom's calling me. I really don't want her to bust into my room.'

'Okay then. Till later. Merry Christmas and have a wonderful celebration.'

'Thank you. Have a nice break too. Bye.'

Quinn logged out and made her way downstairs. The next time she would see Rachel in school would be in the New Year. She thought of her plans for next year, now that Finn was no longer with her, the next stage would be … make Rachel fall for Arnstein? _Hmm, that would be quite challenging._


	7. Part 7

**Part 7**

The New Year came and went and Quinn was quite eager to go back to school. She had not chatted with Rachel since those few days before Christmas and she was curious on what had been happening in Rachel's life. She and her mother had visited her sister in Chicago for the New Year's celebration, so that was great fun. It took her mind off from 'ways to torture Rachel'. But now that she was back in Lima, her mind was back to the same old thing.

School started tomorrow and Quinn was cleaning up her room. She bought a lot of new clothes, courtesy of her sister. She was piling up old clothes to give to the Salvation Army. Once her room was back in order, she turned on her laptop and went online and was happy to see that Rachel was online. Rachel had always been the one to start the conversation, but it's the New Year and she has a new plan, so she sent the first message.

'Hi.'

'Hi!'

'How's your New Year celebration?'

'It was great! My dads and I went on a New Year's cruise in Bermuda.'

'That must be really fun.'

'Yeah, it was a lot of fun.'

'You must meet a lot of people there.'

'Yes, but you know, it was just a short cruise, you don't want to get involved. And it's a gay cruise, so, it can be a bit awkward getting hit by girls.'

'I thought gender's not an issue.'

'It's not but it still needs a bit to get used to since it's not something that I've tried before. I'm sure if it's the right person, the gender doesn't matter. What about you? What did you do?'

'I celebrated it in Chicago. The fireworks were amazing there.'

'Oh, so you must be from the Midwest too?'

'Yes. But let's not try to guess. Lots of places are a drive away from Chicago.'

'I know. I like Chicago. I've been there a few times whenever my dads wanted to do a big shopping trip.'

'Yeah, Michigan Ave is the best, right?'

'Yes, and I love driving through Lake Shore Drive.'

'And the view's amazing at night.'

'But it's not as beautiful as New York.'

'Have you been to New York?'

'A few times, I plan to move there after I graduated high school.'

'What are you going to do there?'

'I'm going to take singing and dancing lessons. I aim to be on Broadway one day.'

'I do think you're destined for Broadway.'

'What's your plan after graduation?'

'Probably I'll go to some Ivy League schools.'

'Harvard?'

'Anything but Harvard, it's so overrated. I do like Brown, Columbia or Yale.'

'Hey, you can go to Columbia and we can meet somewhere in New York.'

'So that we can use the line "Meet me at the top of Empire States Building"?'

'Yes, it would be romantic.'

'Romantic?'

'Oh, you know, I mean the movies always make it so romantic. Not that I'm saying that when we meet it will be in a romantic setting, I just like the whole idea of meeting in famous landmark. You know, like in "An Affair to Remember" or "Sleepless in Seattle".'

'You can't stop babbling even in online chat.'

'What?'

'I mean, what you just said sounds like rambling and somehow you managed to do it in a chatting environment. Normally people would make their sentence clearer before sending it.'

'Oh. Yes, I do have a problem where I just type what I think.'

'It's adorable.'

'You're just saying that because you don't actually have to hear it. Most people find my rambling to be tiresome.'

'I think it's cute.'

'Anyway, are you a Senior?'

'Junior.'

'Oh, so we are the same.'

'Must be fate then.'

':-) It's been nice chatting with you, but I just got back, so my room's still a mess and I better get back to that.'

'Okay, I'll talk to you later. Have a good day in school.'

'Yeah, you too. Bye!'

'Bye.'

Quinn was satisfied with the turn out of the chat, except for that one slipped up, but she didn't think Rachel notice. Overall her plan had gone very well, Rachel had flirted right back.

* * *

They had their first Glee Club meeting in the New Year. Mr Schue hasn't arrived yet, so everybody was excitedly relaying what they did on New Year's Eve. When Quinn entered the choir room, she heard Rachel telling Kurt and Mercedes about her cruise. As she was taking her seat, Mercedes asked her, "So what did you do for New Year Quinn?"

Quinn had that deer caught in the headlight look; she looked at Rachel and quickly said, "Nothing."

"You didn't do anything?"

"I just spent time with my mother and sister."

Rachel was confused why Quinn looked nervous and looked at her before answering the question, but she didn't think much of it since Mr Schue just came in, "Happy New Year everyone!" He clapped his hands, "Regionals!"

* * *

Just as Quinn expected, Finn tried to squirm his way back to her. Ever since the football team won the football championship under Finn's leadership, he was back on top of the popularity ladder and became even more obnoxious. Quinn received a text from Finn asking her to meet him in the auditorium. She was still dating Sam at the moment, even though the term dating involved dates and they haven't gone out on a date for a long time. He would still come to her house for Bible studies, and that was the most they did outside of school. Quinn had somehow managed to make all her weekends full.

She made her way to the auditorium and Finn was already waiting there.

"I know you would come?"

"Why is that?"

"I'm the hottest guy in McKinley and you can't resist that."

Quinn chuckled, "Maybe." She circled him, "but you do remember my boyfriend Sam."

"Is he still your boyfriend? I heard that you hardly have time for him. Maybe you're waiting for someone else to come along."

"And that person would be you?" Quinn smiled flirtatiously.

Finn smirked and came closer, "You and I have a lot of history. I know you still want me."

"You're right. I do still want you …" Quinn said breathlessly. Finn leaned down to kiss her and Quinn put her arm around his shoulder to keep herself steady, and as Finn was about to kiss her, she continued, "to be my lap dog," she laughed and pushed him away.

"What?" Finn was confused.

"Seriously Finn? You really think that I want to get back together with you? Come on, you're Rachel Berry's reject."

Finn frowned, "Isn't that what you always wanted? I saw the way you looked at me in the choir room."

Quinn huffed, "Get over yourself, I wasn't looking at you."

Finn was still confused; Quinn shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"I have to go. Go find yourself a purpose Finn."

* * *

Rachel found out from Kurt about Finn's rendezvous with Quinn. She knew that it wouldn't be long before Finn would try to get back together with Quinn. Maybe he had been waiting for her to release him. She thought she would be more broken hearted about it, but she wasn't, which kind of surprised her. She wondered whether it had anything to do with her new friend. They had been chatting almost every night, even if just for a few minutes. It had quickly become the second best part of her day, just after Glee Club and singing. It felt comforting to have someone to talk to at the end of the day, someone that understood her, someone that she could talk to about music, movies, musicals, books, and random questions about life. It was pretty frustrating to talk to Finn sometimes because she had to explain everything. She wondered how Quinn managed it last time. She can't imagine Quinn had that patience with Finn, but then she was never with him for his intelligence. Sam wasn't any better either. Sometimes she wished for Quinn to find someone that suits her mentally and complement her emotionally. She didn't think there were any boys in McKinley that suited those criteria. And sometimes she wondered why she cared so much about Quinn's personal life when all Quinn had been doing was torment her.

* * *

It was Valentine's Day and Quinn just got home from school. She had avoided Sam the whole day. He had left heart-shaped balloons at her locker and it made her felt guilty because she didn't get him anything, and the truth was that she didn't care enough for it.

She was lying in bed when she heard the doorbell. She wondered who it could be, although she had an inkling on who it might be and she hoped to God that it wasn't him. She looked through the peephole and sighed. Sam was standing outside with that puppy dog look. Quinn took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Hi," Sam smiled broadly and tried to kiss her but she turned her head so he kissed her cheek instead.

"Hi," Quinn forced a smile.

Sam presented her a big box of chocolate and roses, "Happy Valentine's Day!"

Quinn sighed, "Thank you Sam but I'm sorry, I can't accept this."

"What? Why not?" Sam stammered, "Are you not supposed to eat chocolate? I'm sorry. I can get you something else."

"No, it's not that. It's just …" Quinn really didn't want to do this now. Breaking up with someone on Valentine's Day was probably one of the worst days to break up, right after birthdays and anniversaries, and funerals probably come in third, but it had to be done, "I'm really sorry Sam. I don't think I can do this anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Look, I have not been a good girlfriend to you. I have been ignoring you all this year. You don't deserve this. You're a great guy Sam; you should be with someone that appreciates just how great of a guy you are, and that person is not me. I really like you, but just as a friend. Can we just be friends?"

Sam's shoulders dropped and his hands hung out limply on the sides. His face looked so broken. Quinn wanted to cry seeing him that way, but she knew it was the right thing to do. She took off the promise ring he gave her and put it on his palm.


	8. Part 8

**Part 8**

Quinn was about to close her locker when Mercedes approached her.

"Hey Quinn, my mom wanted to know if you and your mom would like to come to dinner this Sunday."

"Yeah, that sounds good. I'll ask my mom and I'll confirm with you later." They walked together to class. "Although I do hope by now your mom knows that we can't consume that insane amount of food."

Mercedes laughed, "She just loves having you two around. By the way, I think I might have left my beanie in your room last time."

"Okay, I'll check it later."

"Anyway, how are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. Thank you for asking," Quinn was confused with Mercedes concerned look.

"I heard about Sam."

It made sense now, "How did you know?"

"Sam told Finn who told Kurt who told me."

Quinn sighed, rumours got around fast in McKinley High. "You must think I'm a horrible person for breaking up with him on Valentine's Day."

"No! You have your reasons. I just want you to know that you do have a friend, if you want to talk."

"Thanks," Quinn smiled warmly at Mercedes. "I just haven't been good to him, and I have been stringing him along. He should be with someone as nice as him." Quinn looked at Mercedes, "like you for example."

"What? No, Sam wouldn't be interested in me."

"Mercedes, you're a wonderful person."

"I'm not like you Quinn."

Quinn stopped and faced Mercedes, "You're a beautiful person, inside and outside. And Sam is just the kind of guy that can see that."

They continued walking to class, "Sometimes I don't understand why people think you're a bitch. That's not the Quinn I know."

Quinn laughed at that and as they were turning the corner, they bumped into Rachel.

"Oh. Hi Mercedes! Hi Quinn!"

"Hi Rachel," said Mercedes.

Quinn somehow looked nervous and uncomfortable. She said to Mercedes, "Oh, erm, I have to go. I'll talk to you later," and quickly walked away.

Rachel frowned and she walked with Mercedes to class, "What's with her? She's been odd lately."

"What do you mean?"

"She hardly acknowledges me now. Last time she would be quick to call me names."

"And you miss that? Oh honey, I think you might have the Stockholm Syndrome," Mercedes smiled and put her arm around Rachel. Rachel just smiled sheepishly. "She broke up with Sam yesterday, so she must still be sad."

"On Valentine's Day?" Rachel looked horrified.

"Yeah."

"Hmm, maybe she wants to get back together with Finn."

"She rejected Finn last time."

"At that time, she was still with Sam, and now that's she single, she's free to date Finn again."

"Aren't you upset about it?"

"Even if I did, there's nothing I can do. We broke up about 2 months ago. I'm still angry at him and he doesn't seem to feel any remorse about it."

"Do you still want to be with him?"

"Now? No, besides …" Rachel smiled shyly.

"Besides what? Oh My God! There's already someone else?" Mercedes was shocked.

"No. I mean, I don't know. It's too soon. Well, it's been a while, but it's complicated."

The bell rang. "Oh missy, you're saved by the bell, but you are going to tell us all about it later!"

* * *

Rachel, Kurt and Mercedes were huddled together in the choir room. Rachel had her back to the door and both Kurt and Mercedes were too engrossed in Rachel's tale to pay attention to other people. So nobody took notice that Quinn was sitting close to them. Quinn took out a book and pretended to read, but she was actually listening to the whole conversation.

"Where did you meet him?" asked Kurt.

"What's his name?" asked Mercedes.

"We met online," Rachel said quietly.

Kurt and Mercedes looked at each other and made a face.

"Dating site?"

"No. Erm, MySpace."

"Urgh, that's as bad as dating site," said Kurt.

Rachel ignored him, "We've been talking for about 3 months now."

"On the phone?"

"No, just online chat," Mercedes raised her eyebrows. "But they're good chats."

"Then how do you know that he is what he claimed he is?"

"Actually I don't even know if it's a he," Rachel looked at them under her eyelashes.

"What? Rachel, you could be talking to some creepy old fat bald guy who spent his time sitting in front of the computer in his boxer short and wife beater!"

Quinn chuckled but she quickly covered her mouth, they didn't seem to notice.

"Thank you Mercedes for that imagery," Kurt said sarcastically.

"No, I'm sure Arnstein's not that kind of person. He, or she, has been very sweet and kind and truly understands me."

"Because that's how sexual predators work."

"Okay Mercedes, let's give Rachel the benefit of the doubt here. Let's go back to that part where you said you're not sure if Arnstein's a boy or a girl and you like … this person anyway, I mean, in the romantic sense?"

Rachel thought about it, "Yes." She smiled, "Actually the more I talk with … Arnstein, the more I think it's a girl."

Kurt got so excited at that, "And even when you think that Arnstein might be a girl, you still have romantic feelings towards …" Kurt looked frustrated, "let's just call it her from now on. This whole pronoun thing is confusing. Anyway," he had that giddy face again, "Rachel, have you joined the Sapphic persuasion?"

Quinn really wanted to look at their faces but she had to maintain this façade.

"I don't know. I'm just saying that I'm not opposed to it if Arnstein turns out to be a girl. I feel like I'm falling for the soul."

"Let's hope this soul isn't attached to a hideous face." Kurt and Mercedes giggled.

Rachel got agitated, "Well, communication is the most crucial part of a relationship."

"Said by people who can't bear to have physical intimacy with the other person," Kurt and Mercedes giggled even louder.

Rachel pouted. "Oh Rachel, we're sorry. I'm sure Arnstein is a nice person, but the fact is he, I meant she, knows how you look like but you know next to nothing about her. You're not even sure about the gender."

"Do you even know Arnstein's real name?"

"No," Rachel looked down.

"Do you know if Arnstein likes you?"

"Not really."

"Rachel, I know you're easily attached to someone who gives you attention, but you have to think rationally about this. Do you know where Arnstein's from? If Arnstein's not from around here, what kind of future are you going to have?"

"We'll both go to New York after graduation."

"In one and a half year time?"

"It's not that long."

"Look, I don't think you should be thinking about the future yet. Right now you need to figure out who this person is, have a phone conversation, Skype session, exchanged pictures even. The Internet is full of creepy people and we really don't want you to be part of a statistic," Kurt said while rubbing Rachel's back.

Mercedes rubbed her arm, "Be careful okay. Remember what we told you. Get that information first."

Mr Schue entered the choir room, so they turned their seats to face him. That was when Rachel realized that Quinn was sitting not that far away from them. She wondered if Quinn heard any of their conversation, but Quinn looked preoccupied with her book and didn't look at all concern, so she was pretty sure Quinn didn't hear anything.

Sam walked in and looked sadly at Quinn, and then he took a seat at the back row. Then Finn came in and sat next to Quinn. Rachel saw Finn whispered something to Quinn who laughed at what he was saying and she felt a pang of jealousy, but she pushed it aside.


	9. Part 9

**Part 9**

Quinn had been sitting in front of her laptop for almost an hour, but she had not logged on to MySpace. She carefully thought her next course of action. _How long is she going to play this game? How far is she taking this? What was the main purpose again?_ She reminded herself that she did all this to get back at Rachel for all the things that Rachel had put her through. Up till now, she had not gotten anything from Rachel that can destroy her. She needed to get Rachel to fall for Arnstein completely, because only then Rachel would share her secrets. And after that, Arnstein can break her heart. That would certainly do it. The problem now though was how to deflect the questions that Rachel would surely ask.

_Rachel is falling for Arnstein._ She smiled again remembering how Rachel had said it. It surprised her but also made her exhilarated. But then this was Rachel, she fell in love so easily that it was not even a challenge.

She decided to log in finally and saw that Rachel was already online. She instantly received a message. She took a deep breath, _here we go_.

'Hi!'

'Hi.'

'I didn't see you online last night.'

'Yeah, I wasn't in the mood.'

'Busy with Valentine's Day?'

'No, just have many things on my mind.'

'Oh, okay. Do you want to talk about it?'

'Not right now. What about you? Any celebration?'

'Well, I don't have a boyfriend anymore, so no. But I did get a box of chocolate from an admirer.'

'You have an admirer?'

'Yes. Are you jealous?'

'Maybe. So tell me about this admirer.'

'He's a long-time admirer. He had asked me out many times but I always turned him down.'

'Be careful, one day they won't take no as an answer, and I hope that chocolate wasn't spiked with love potion.'

'Well, I'm eating them right now and I haven't fallen in love with him. Oh wait a minute, sorry, I can't talk right now. I really need to find Jacob to declare my love for him :-D'

'Funny :-P'

'Did you get anything or did you give someone something?'

'I got some balloons.'

'Heart shaped?'

'Yes.'

'That popular girl in our school, Quinn, also got some heart-shaped balloons from her boyfriend, but then she broke up with him yesterday. Pity Sam.'

'You didn't pity her?'

'She's the dumper. Besides she wouldn't have any problem of finding someone else. Well, I don't think Sam has any problem of finding someone else either. But it's just a bit harsh to break up on Valentine's Day.'

'If people have to break up, it doesn't matter what day it is.'

'Yes, you're right. I broke up with Finn a week before Christmas, so that's pretty harsh too. Oh, talking about Finn, I think that's why Quinn broke up with Sam so that she can get back together with Finn.'

Quinn frowned, 'You think Quinn wants Finn back?'

'I've seen the way she looked at him. She would always find ways to look at him every time we're in the choir room.'

Quinn froze. _I guess my 'discreet watching' wasn't that discreet after all._

'How did you know that she was looking at him? Unless if you're looking at her too.'

'I wasn't intentionally looking at her. Finn used to sit next to me and sometimes I would turn to look at him and I saw that she was looking at us.'

Quinn needed to turn this conversation to something else, 'Well, this has been exciting, but do you really want to spend this time talking about Finn and Quinn?'

'No. I'm sorry.'

'It's okay. Although I wonder, are you okay if they do end up getting back together?'

'I felt a bit jealous when I saw him sitting next to her today.'

'So you do want him back?'

'No! I just don't understand why she wants him back. I wanted Finn before because he's like that dream high-school boyfriend, he's cute and popular and I wasn't. But our relationship didn't have any depth. Quinn's a smart, beautiful and popular girl. She doesn't need Finn to validate her. She's already validated.'

Quinn felt her face redden. 'I don't understand this about you. From what you've told me, Quinn has been your tormenter since the beginning of high school, but I've never heard you said anything bad about her.'

'I don't understand myself either. Maybe in some ways I care about her. But it doesn't matter. Come on, let's talk about something else.'

'Yeah, what do you want to talk about?'

'Tell me 3 things about yourself.'

Quinn thought what she could tell that Rachel didn't know, 'I do ballet. I play the piano. I love to cook. Now tell me 3 things about yourself.'

'I do ballet too. I can play the guitar. I love to eat ;-) Name 3 countries that you would love to visit.'

'France. Italy. Cambodia. Your turn.'

'France. Greece. India. I guess we'll always have Paris.'

':-)'

'Ok, next time I'll ask the hard hitting question, but for now, can I at least please know your real name?'

There it was, the question that Quinn had been dreading, but the good thing was that she has a valid answer. 'Lucy.'

'So you are a girl. Well, nice to meet you Lucy :-)'

'Are you disappointed that I'm a girl?'

'No, actually it's a relief. I've envisioned you to be a girl all this time anyway.'

'Why is that?'

'Just little things, I can't even pinpoint what, besides it's a hunch. Anyway, is it possible for us to have a Skype session or something? I mean, we've been talking for a while and it would be nice to see you.'

'Maybe in time. It's just that my mom can walk in at any time and I don't want her to ask me questions that I'm not ready to answer.'

'Okay. Maybe we can exchange pictures or something. I don't even know how you look like.'

'Does it matter how I look?'

'No. I like you no matter what.'

Quinn smiled, she managed to deflect. 'So you like me?'

'Erm … yes.'

'How do you 'like' me?'

'Like more than friends. I know this might freaked you out and I'm sorry for that. I don't know if you like girls. I don't even know that I like girls until you. Well, I do sometimes look at some girls a little too long to be normal, but it's not that I check out all girls.'

'Rachel. Stop. Breathe. Relax. If I don't like you, I wouldn't be spending almost every night talking to you.'

'So you do like girls?'

'I like you.'

'Okay, so we established that we both like each other.'

'I guess so.'

'So what now?'

'I know you're curious to know more about me, but let's just take it one step at a time. We have plenty of time.'

'It might get frustrating after a while. I wish I can talk to you in person.'

'Give me time.'

'Okay. I can do that.'

'Hey, I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay. I have to finish some homework.'

'Okay, till tomorrow. Good night!'

'Good night, bye.'

Quinn logged out, exhaled and leaned on her chair. _I am going to the deepest level of Hell._

* * *

Finn smugly leaned on the locker next to Quinn's locker. Quinn was taking out some books in between classes.

"What do you want Finn? Whatever it is, the answer is still no."

"Well, Junior Prom is coming soon and I know how much you want you to be a Prom Queen. So I'm thinking that we should run together. You know, I'm the hottest guy in school and you're the hottest girl in school. It's like a sure thing.'

Quinn felt irritated with his smugness, "It won't be for another 2 months."

"It's never too early to campaign."

"I'll think about it," she closed her locker and walked away.

* * *

"Let me get this straight, you broke up with Sam and you have been rejecting Finn again and again, and for what?"

Santana and Quinn were walking together to Cheerios practice.

"I just don't have time for all of that."

"But didn't you say before that you want both of them to be under your leash?"

"Yes, I remember what I said. But I realized that I don't have time to entertain one boy, let alone two. They're like puppy dogs, always needy and clingy."

"Oh yes, I forgot, because you are so busy being in this fake relationship," Santana said mockingly.

Quinn got annoyed with Santana's tone, "If we both want to destroy her, I need to play this to the end."

"Don't you already have something that we can use?"

"No!"

"Still? Quinn, you started this in November, and now it's March, and you still have nothing?"

They had stopped walking and were having the argument on the track field.

"It's an investment. You can't just put your money in one day and expect the return straight away."

Santana scoffed, "I really don't know what you're playing at. I think you're wasting your time on this."

"Listen, this is my game and it's my rule. I say when it's a waste and when it's not. I'm getting there. She trusts me enough to tell me things about herself now, okay? So just … wait, okay?" Quinn looked at Santana pleadingly.

"Fine!"


	10. Part 10

**Part 10**

Santana had had a rough couple of months. It had been hard to constantly see Brittany with Artie, but it was even worse when Brittany had actually rejected her. Well, Brittany did not actually reject her, but all the same anyway because Brittany chose Artie over her. So when Mr Schue assigned all of them to write original songs for Regionals, she put a lot of heart and emotions into writing her song. She thought her song had been pretty good, but Rachel had flatly rejected it, saying it would not display her vocal power. She had almost jumped off her seat to strangle Rachel but Quinn held her down. So right after Glee Club practice, she followed Quinn to her car.

"You got to give me something here Q. That girl is driving me off the wall!"

"I know. She's driving me crazy too but I have nothing, okay."

"How could you have nothing? Surely there's something."

"Sure, her favorite color is pink; her favorite musical is Funny Girl. Let's see how you can use _that_ to bring her down."

Santana looked at her accusingly, "You're keeping something from me here. It's either you really have nothing to tell or you just don't want to."

"And why would I do that?"

"I don't know. Who knows how your insane brain is working."

Quinn glared at Santana, she spoke the next few sentences very slowly to get her point across, "Listen here Santana; I'm going to say this one last time. This is MY game, MY rule. You," she poked Santana, "don't get to dictate how _I_ play it. You're nothing but a bystander. So if you question me again, you might end up running suicides tomorrow. Understood?"

Santana gritted her teeth but nodded her head anyway. Quinn drove away while Santana looked on angrily.

* * *

There was no Glee Club practice the next day, so Rachel sat alone in the choir room trying to write her song. She was playing idly on the piano and for some reason she was thinking of Quinn. There were a few constants in her life. Quinn always commenting on her video was one of them, but she had not done it for the last few videos. _Maybe Mercedes is right, I do have the Stockholm Syndrome. _Rachel thought that maybe Quinn had gotten bored of her and moved on to a new target, someone more interesting to torture. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and played the piano again. She had only completed the first verse but she didn't know how to make it blend nicely to the chorus. Then she heard someone entered the room. She turned around only to see that it was Santana. Santana's face was hard to read, she was looking at Rachel like she was assessing a prey. Her eyes were dark and it scared Rachel a bit, but Rachel stood her ground.

"Hi Santana, how can I help you?" Rachel said politely.

"You know Hobbit, you must think that you have it all, don't you?"

Rachel frowned at that because she never thought that way about herself.

Santana continued, "Well, except a boyfriend of course. I don't know what you were thinking when you gave up Finn. Sure that boy's a dull, but he's probably the best that you can do. And now that you don't have him, who do you have?"

Santana walked closer to the piano. Rachel felt uncomfortable with the close distance, so she stood and backed away.

Santana smirked, "Oh, you must be thinking, I do have somebody and when I go home, I'm going to tell them all about Santana, 'Santana is such a bitch, please Arnstein, what should I do?'" Santana said mockingly.

Rachel felt blood drained from her head, her face turned to shock and fear. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me."

"Did Kurt and Mercedes tell you? Did you overhear us?"

Santana snorted, "As if! Get it into your brain Midget, you've been played!"

"No! No." Rachel crossed her arms and shook her head repeatedly, then she looked at Santana, "Are you … are you …" Rachel couldn't even finish the question.

"Hell no! I have no time for stupid childish game. As you can see, I prefer direct approach," Santana laughed, she's loving the reaction she's getting from Rachel.

_And now for the best part._

Santana walked slowly towards Rachel who had somehow glued to the spot. "But let me give you a hint on who might, like let's say … a certain blonde, who's conniving enough, manipulative enough, vengeful enough …"

Rachel was shaking her head again. "It can't be, it can't be."

"Think about it, which one is more plausible, a stranger had come into your life and made you feel so good about yourself or … this is just a game being played by a mastermind because you are just the kind of person that's gullible enough to be fooled?" Santana smiled deviously.

Rachel looked at her, "Where is she?"

"Right about now … I would say at the gym, doing her favorite pastime, laughing at your lame ass videos."

Rachel ran away from the choir room and headed straight to the gym. Her mind was racing and she couldn't think properly at the moment. She just needed to get there. As she was about to enter the gym, some basketball players made their way out. She quickly entered right after the last one left and saw Quinn sitting on the bleacher. There were two other Cheerios with her and they were laughing at something that was on her laptop.

* * *

They were watching a video of a French bulldog sitting on a swing and they were all laughing at the silliness. Suddenly somebody closed Quinn's laptop roughly.

"HEY!"

Quinn got angry and looked up to see Rachel's furious face.

"Having a laugh at my expense?"

Quinn was taken aback, "Leave us," she told the other Cheerios.

Rachel eyed them exiting the gym. The gym was now empty except for the two of them.

"Is it true?" Rachel asked her angrily.

Quinn looked at her confused.

"IS IT TRUE?" Rachel shouted. "That you … that you're …" It pained her to say it, "Arnstein?"

Quinn's face dropped and that was all the answer Rachel needed to confirm it.

"Oh My God," Rachel covered her mouth, "Oh My God." Rachel's body was shaking. She looked at Quinn loathingly, "You have done many despicable things, but this, this is so low Quinn. I never thought that you are capable of such things."

Rachel wanted to cry but she would not shed a tear in front of Quinn. She ran away from the gym, and only then Quinn managed to get a word out, "Rachel!"


	11. Part 11

**Part 11**

Quinn thought of chasing Rachel but she had a more important matter to address. Besides, Cheerios practice would start soon. She made her way to the girl's locker room and saw her target.

"You told her!" Quinn shoved Santana against the lockers.

"Sure did," Santana said smugly.

"You have no right to interfere."

"Well, I'm playing my own game, seems like I'm the overall winner."

"How dare you betray me?"

"Q, I'm only doing what you've wanted to do anyway. Isn't that your initial plan, to break her? And I did just that, I was just more efficient." Santana gave it a thought, "No, actually you're the one who broke her. So, congratulations on a well laid plan." Santana patted Quinn's shoulder and Quinn shoved it away.

"This is not for my gain, it's for yours. Hitting two birds with one stone, isn't it?"

"Oh Q, don't be so broken about it. We both got we want. Don't tell me you're regretting this?" Santana raised her eyebrows, "Don't tell me that you have actually fallen for that Midget?" Santana smiled challengingly.

Quinn had no control over her body. In that split second, her right hand formed a fist and she decked Santana hard on the face. It knocked Santana down to the floor, and that was the moment that Brittany walked in on them.

"What are you two doing?" Brittany shouted.

But she didn't have enough time to get to them; Santana had gotten up and pushed Quinn hard against the lockers. Quinn pushed Santana's face away and Santana gripped Quinn's arm hard with her long fingernails.

Brittany tried to come between them to break them apart, but the two girls were really strong. So Brittany focused on just getting Santana away from Quinn. She put her arms around Santana's waist and pulled her away. It was a struggle but she managed to separate them finally.

"What's going on here? Why are you two fighting?" Brittany asked while still holding on to Santana and looking at Quinn.

None of them answered, both were breathing heavily and looking at each other with contempt.

"Keep your girlfriend away from me," Quinn said to Brittany before leaving the locker room.

* * *

Rachel managed to make her way home without any breakdown. Her face was a mask of indifference, and when her father asked, she just said that it was nothing to worry about. Right after she closed her room door, she made her way to her bed and bawled herself to sleep.

She woke up just in time for dinner. She took a long shower and put her indifference mask back on before making her way downstairs. She was not in the mood to answer any questions that her dads would surely ask. After dinner she locked herself up in her room. She sat on her bed and grabbed her pen and notepad. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and when she opened them, she quickly wrote down the words that had instantly come into her mind.

"What have I done, I wish I could run away from this ship going under …"

As she was writing, the words became blurry and the paper was getting wet. Her tears dropped on the paper making it hard to write, so she started again on a new piece of paper. It went on like that for a while until she managed to complete the song.

* * *

Quinn had her right knuckle wrapped and her left arm bandaged. Sue was shocked to see the state of her left arm. It had four fingernails' marks and dripping blood that she sent Quinn to see the nurse to get them treated, but she still had to come to practice afterwards. Santana didn't come to practice and Brittany said something to Sue to appease her. She could not care less about Santana at the moment. It was a good thing that she didn't turn up or else it would be hell for her.

When Quinn got home, she went online straight away. She didn't think that Rachel would be on, but she was hopeful none the less. Her mom had been very worried to see her bandaged hand, so she made up some stories about being attacked by an insane girl who really wanted to be a Cheerio. After dinner, she checked her page again and Rachel was still not online. She left it on while she did her homework. She kept on glancing at her laptop and hoping to hear that beeping sound to indicate that she received a message but it never came.

When she woke up the next day, she felt so horrible, but she thought that whatever she felt, Rachel must have felt 10 times worse. On the way to school, she thought what would be next course of action. Should she apologize? She didn't even know how. Was she sorry? Yes, she never thought it would turn out this bad. _Who am I kidding? That's exactly what I wanted before and in the end, I didn't want it anymore. Why? _Was it because she felt a connection with Rachel? But that wasn't her, that was Arnstein. She finally arrived at school.

Quinn looked for Rachel the whole day but she couldn't seem to find her. Normally she would see Rachel in the hallway in between classes. Even though they didn't have any classes together today, their path would still cross. She's worried that Rachel had not come to school, but then Rachel would never skipped school for anything. She was thankful that they have the Glee Club practice today. Normally they would only meet once a week, but Regionals was next week and they were putting on extra hours.

* * *

Rachel had been avoiding Quinn the whole day. Unfortunately she couldn't avoid her in Glee Club. After school ended but before Glee Club practice, she went to see Mr Schue to play her song and he really loved it. She asked if it was possible for her to practice the song without the other Glee Club members, except for Tina and Brittany whom she had asked earlier to be her backup singers, and Mr Schue gave his permission.

It was almost 3 p.m. and one by one the Glee kids came into the choir room. Rachel took a seat next to Mercedes and Kurt joined them.

"Did you hear? Quinn punched Santana," Kurt said.

"What? When?" Mercedes was shocked.

"Yesterday, during Cheerios practice."

"Why?"

Kurt shrugged, "Santana being Santana." Mercedes seemed to accept that answer, but he continued, "I don't really know why but that's all I heard."

"Who told you?"

"Brittany."

"And she didn't know why?"

"Santana wouldn't tell her."

Rachel was quiet the whole time and just listened in to the conversation. She saw Santana walked into the room and her left cheek was bruised. Rachel gasped, and so did other people. Quinn walked in later and all of them saw the state of her right hand and left arm. Rachel looked worried for a second, the second that Quinn looked at her and she instantly looked away. Quinn gave Santana the evil eye and took a seat next to Finn, because that was the only one available.

Mr Schue came in a few minutes later and addressed them, "Hi everyone," and he stopped when he saw Santana's face. "Santana, what happened to you? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine Mr Schue. It's nothing."

"I hope you didn't get into a fight."

"You should see the other person," Santana tried to laugh it off.

"Okay," then Mr Schue saw Quinn's bandaged hands, "Quinn, what happened to your hands?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Just got attack by some crazy Cheerio-wannabe."

Mr Schue looked between Quinn and Santana knowing that something happened between them.

He took a deep breath, "Regionals is next week. We still have a lot to do. I want us to put all our differences aside and work together as a team to produce our best show yet. Can we do that?"

He received an unenthusiastic reply.

"Can we do that?" He asked louder.

"Yes!" They all said aloud.

"Okay, that's more like it. Anyway, Rachel has written a beautiful song for her solo and Tina and Brittany will be singing with her and as a surprise to everyone, you will only get to hear it on the competition day."

"What if it sounds like crap? Mr Schue, I'm sorry, you don't really have the best taste in music," Santana voiced her thoughts.

"I'm sure Rachel has written a really nice song," Quinn said. Everyone was looking at Quinn, surprised with her statement, including Mr Schue. For one thing, she actually used Rachel's name, and she used it nicely, and the tone was not in any way sarcastic.

"Nobody asked your opinion," Rachel retorted. People were now looking back and forth between Rachel and Quinn; some were worried that Quinn would snap back, but instead Quinn just tightened her lips and looked down.

"Okay, that's enough! Santana, if you don't trust my music taste, then you can ask Tina and Brittany what they think of it. But right now," he looked at all of them, "we need to practice the choreography for 'Loser Like Me'."

* * *

Quinn wanted to talk to Rachel after Glee Club practice but Rachel was talking with Tina and Brittany, so she waited in the choir room. Rachel saw that Quinn was still hanging around, so she said, "We're going to practice our song now. Can you please leave?"

Quinn wanted to say something but decided against it, "Okay, have fun."

Rachel rolled her eyes, snorted and turned around.

* * *

That night, Quinn logged in again to MySpace but Rachel was still not online. She felt frustrated, angry, annoyed, needy, and everything that she shouldn't be feeling and it made her angry again. She thought that if Rachel didn't want to talk to her, then let her be. _What's done is done; I don't want to apologize for my childish game._ She was sorry that Rachel got hurt but she was not the kind to beg for forgiveness. It was clear that Rachel wouldn't give her the time of day, so why should she bother? She logged off and went back to her bed to continue her homework. She kept looking at her laptop, and after half an hour, she logged back in but Rachel was still not online. She closed her laptop in a huff.

* * *

Quinn thought that it was a good thing that the game was over now. At least she didn't have to spend her nights pretending to be someone else and entertaining Rachel. It was pretty tiring. But every time she saw Rachel in school, she had this sudden longing. And every time Rachel saw her, she had that look of loathing. Then Quinn would frown and walked the other way. She thought it was good riddance, she didn't have to deal with Rachel's craziness anymore, but every night, she would leave her laptop on the same page.

When the next week came around, she can't take it anymore. She needed to talk to Rachel.


	12. Part 12

**Part 12**

Rachel was more than happy to volunteer to do everything for their preparation for Regionals, from finding the clothes and the shoes and the logistic. Mercedes helped getting the dress and shoe sizes for the girls while she got the sizes for the boys. She had to keep herself busy, because that was the only way for her not to deal with having Quinn around. Every time she looked at Quinn, she felt her blood boiling. Her practice session with Tina and Brittany had been going great, but she wasn't looking forward to practice the group number. It was worse enough to have Quinn there, but to have Santana add layers to her voice just aggravate her.

She had not logged on to MySpace for a while. The last time she logged on, she did something that she should have done a long time ago; she finally blocked 'Sky Splits', and she had also blocked 'Arnstein' for good measure. She thought of deleting her chat history but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Sometimes she saw Quinn looking at her in school. She didn't know what that look meant, but no matter what all she felt was slapping Quinn hard. She controlled her anger and channeled it into her performance instead.

One day, after the final bell rang, Quinn approached Rachel at her locker.

"Hi, can we talk?" Quinn asked softly.

Rachel looked at her disbelievingly, "No!"

Then Rachel walked away leaving Quinn looking embarrassed, angry and confused.

* * *

Regionals was tomorrow and they were doing one last dance rehearsal at the auditorium. Everybody was already tired from repeating the song many times. When Mr Schue called it a day, everybody was quick to exit the auditorium. Rachel was the last one to leave and as she was about to open the auditorium door, Quinn walked back in. The sudden opening of the door gave her a jolt.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," Quinn looked apologetic.

"What do you want?" Rachel was irritated.

"I want to talk to you."

"And I don't. Can you move?" Quinn was blocking the door.

"No, Rachel, please, you have to hear my side of the story."

"What's there to tell? You wanted to humiliate me and you got your wish."

Quinn opened her mouth but no words came out.

Rachel glared at her, "My father is waiting outside, and you don't want to make my father wait."

Quinn was suddenly worried that Rachel could have told her dads. She didn't want to face the fury of the other Berrys. She stepped out of the auditorium and held the door for Rachel.

Quinn's action really confused Rachel. She glanced at Quinn and walked away.

* * *

It was Regionals day and Rachel was putting on some finishing touches on her make-up. Finn came to wish her good luck and she smiled warmly at him. She heard the announcer introducing New Directions and that was her cue. She made her way to the side of the stage and saw the curtains being lifted. She was about to step on stage when Quinn approached her.

"Hey, break a leg."

Rachel looked at her and said, "Listen carefully to the words."

_What did Rachel meant by that? Did she write the song for her? Was that the reason she had been secretive about it?_ Once the music started, Finn also came to stand on the side of the stage, but they did not acknowledge each other. They were both too absorbed with Rachel's performance. Quinn listened to the lyrics carefully but she didn't know what to make of it. At some point during the performance, Rachel looked to the side and her eyes went from Finn to Quinn and back to Finn before she looked back at the audience. Quinn looked at Finn up and down even though he can't see it; she was annoyed with his presence. Now she wasn't sure whether that song was supposed to be just for her or for Finn too. She saw Finn talked to Rachel earlier. Could it be possible that Rachel wanted Finn back and Quinn had pushed her back into his arms?

* * *

Ever since they won Regionals, Finn was all over Rachel again. It looked like they were back to being a couple. One day during Glee Club practice, Kurt and Mercedes asked Rachel about it.

"Are you getting back together with Finn?"

Quinn was sitting nearby and Rachel knew that she could hear them, so she said, "Maybe, I don't know yet. He had finally apologized for his mistakes and said he's really sorry about it."

"But what about Arnstein? You haven't talked about her for a while," Kurt asked.

"You guys were right. She's a big creep," Rachel emphasized the 'creep' part. From the corner of her eyes, she could see Quinn squirming on her seat.

"Sorry about that Rachel, but I hope that's not the reason you're getting back with Finn. I do like him, and he is my step-brother and all, but I don't think he's right for you."

Rachel smiled, "Thanks Kurt for your concern."

* * *

Quinn slammed the door to Finn's locker, "Why are you all over Rachel?"

"What?" Finn was startled.

"I saw you. Ever since Regionals, you've been following her around like a love sick puppy."

"What's it to you? You've made it clear that you didn't want to get back together."

Quinn put on her fake smile, "I thought we're running our prom campaign together. You can't be chasing one girl and campaigning with another girl. And there's no way for you to win if you're running it with her, and you know that."

Finn looked like he's trying to solve complicated Math problems, so Quinn made it simple for him.

"Do you want to win Prom King?"

"Yeah."

"Then drop the chasing act!" Quinn walked away.

* * *

Rachel noticed that Finn had not been as eager to do things for her as before, but she didn't mind. Kurt was right about Finn, and besides her heart was not into it anyway. One important lesson that she had learned from that mess with Quinn was that she did not need anyone to make her feel special when she already believed that she was special.

* * *

The bell rang to mark the end of the fourth period and the beginning of lunch. Quinn walked out from her class and from afar, she saw Rachel walked into the girls' bathroom. She made her way there and there were some girls chatting in the bathroom, but they quickly walked out when they saw her. So that left only Rachel and her. Rachel walked out from the stall, washed and dried her hands. When she turned around, she almost jumped. She was startled by Quinn's presence.

"How many times do we have to do this?" Rachel asked angrily.

"You have to talk to me."

"I don't have to talk to you just because you want to."

"Please Rachel, just please hear me out," Quinn was pleading. Rachel studied her; she had never heard Quinn like this.

"5 minutes."

"Okay … umm … okay," Quinn was pacing.

"Time's ticking here."

"Okay. Umm … " Quinn looked at Rachel, "first of all, I want to …" Quinn cleared her throat, "apologize for what I did to you. It was very immature and disgraceful. I admit that in the beginning I did want to hurt and break you for reasons that were very stupid when I think about it now, but over time, things change. The truth is …"

Quinn found it hard to continue with the next part of her sentence.

"What? The truth is what?" Rachel got impatient.

Quinn took a few deep breaths. "The truth is, somewhere along the line, the line between Arnstein and me had been very blurry, that the words were no longer coming from Arnstein, the words were mine."

Rachel looked at Quinn intensely and tried to understand what Quinn had just said and what she came up with still didn't make any sense. "What are you trying to say?"

Quinn sighed, "What I'm trying to say is that it's not just Arnstein that has fallen for you, _I_ have fallen for you."

Rachel laughed, "And you expect me to believe that? Everything you told me has been nothing but lies. Is this the next stage of your game?"

"God, Rachel, this is not a game. I mean it. And for the record, I have never lied to you."

Rachel snorted, "Really, _Lucy_?"

"That is my name. My full name is Lucy Quinn Fabray. People stopped calling me that ever since I moved here. I don't like that name. I can prove it to you, but I have to go get my driver's license."

Rachel shook her head, "It still doesn't change anything."

Quinn was frustrated, "Rachel, I'm sorry and I want to make it up to you. Please tell me how."

Rachel stood still for a few minutes. She wasn't looking at Quinn; she was looking at the floor. After a few minutes of silence, Rachel looked at Quinn and said, "Prove it."

Quinn raised her eyebrows, "Prove what?"

"Prove to me that you are Arnstein," and Rachel walked out.


	13. Part 13

**Part 13**

_Prove it? Prove how?_ These words were going through Quinn's mind the whole time. She was lying in bed trying to sleep but she kept on thinking about those words again and again. _What does she want from me? How am I supposed to prove that I am Arnstein? What does that even mean? Does she want me to be kinder to her in school? But I have stopped calling her names; I even called her by her name now. Does she want me to come out? But I'm not even gay. Am I? I'm not into all girls, I just like her. She's an exception. But then, come to think of it, I know that I'm emotionally attracted to her, but am I physically attracted too? Sure she's beautiful at times, and cute other times, although can be quite annoying sometimes. She does have a nice body, but just because I said another girl have a nice body, it does not make me gay, right? That's what girls do; we can appreciate other girls' beauty. That's why lots of girls can also be obsessed with female celebrities, there's nothing to it. But when I think of Rachel, can I even kiss her? I never even thought of this before, and great, now I'm thinking about it. No, I don't think I can, it'll be too weird, right? Have I really fallen for her or did I just say that out of desperation so that she would give me a chance? Just because she gave me fuzzy feeling doesn't mean that I've fallen for her, right? Oh God, all these questions are driving me insane._

Quinn turned to the side. _Am I supposed to take her out on a date? But that's lame if it's going to be just like any other dates. That's what Finn would do and I so do not want to be compared to Finn. Besides how do you ask another girl out on a date? I've never had to do that before, it's always the guys who asked me out. And if ever I asked them to do something, I always used my seductive voice and that seems so wrong to use that on Rachel. But am I ready to have a date with Rachel, in Lima, where everybody knows somebody that knows you? Am I ready to go through this? Why would I want to choose this path when life is complicated enough as it is? That's it; I'm not going to do anything. I don't have to prove myself to anybody._

With that thought, Quinn finally fell asleep.

* * *

Quinn felt almost joyful when she went to school the next day. She was putting all this behind her and considered it to be temporary insanity, and now she's back to normal. That was until lunch hour when she saw Finn sitting next to Rachel in the cafeteria. Rachel was laughing at something he said. Finn and Rachel both saw her looking at them madly. She ignored them and went to sit with the Cheerios.

Finn came to talk to her later.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I know you told me to stay away from Rachel because of this prom thing, but –"

"You know what, you can go chase her like a sick puppy, whatever. I don't care. What I care is that you play your part in this campaign. I've designed some posters, so you need to get them printed," Quinn passed Finn the USB stick. "Then you need to hang them everywhere, and go campaign to your jock buddies. Do your part and you can go chase any skirts you want, okay?" Quinn looked maniacal.

"Erm … okay."

"Good, now leave."

The whole week went on the same way. Every time she saw Finn talking to Rachel, she gave them an annoyed look, but whenever she saw Rachel alone in the hallway, she gave a small smile that Rachel actually returned.

* * *

Rachel was really confused. She thought when she told Quinn to prove herself, Quinn would have done something by now, but the most she did is smile at her. Okay, she did smile in public, so that must have been a big thing for her. But if Quinn thought that's all she needed to do then she's dead wrong. Or maybe it was still a game all along and Quinn just got tired of playing it. _Fine, whatever. _Rachel was disappointed though; some parts of her wanted to believe Quinn and were hoping for … actually, she didn't even know what she was hoping for, but she wanted Quinn to do something.

Then Finn had been all over her, again. He had been very sweet and considerate, which confused Rachel even more. Her feelings for Finn might not be as strong as before, but it was still there. He asked her to go out this weekend but she said that she had a few things to do with her dads, which wasn't really a lie, although she could have just got out of that easily. But she didn't want to lead him on when she wasn't even sure what was happening to her life right now.

* * *

They were rehearsing some dance moves in the auditorium when Finn had accidentally hit Rachel's face and she fell down. Luckily it didn't break anything, just that her face was stinging a bit. What she did notice when she fell down was Quinn had almost coming to her side, but she didn't. Finn wanted to take her to see the nurse and she let him. She glanced at Quinn who was frowning at them. It had been almost two weeks since she asked Quinn to prove herself and she still didn't do anything, and she was kind of annoyed at that.

* * *

It was Saturday morning and Quinn was not in the mood to do anything. Her week had sucked badly and she had not been putting enough effort in campaigning for the prom. The thing was that she didn't have the desire for it anymore. She wished there was some other guy that she could be campaigning with, because then she wouldn't have to see Finn's face. He annoyed her so much right now. It's like every chance he got he would sit next to Rachel. She saw that sometimes Rachel would move to sit next to Kurt and Mercedes and she felt like laughing at his face.

Even though she had said that this was temporary insanity, now she felt that she was really going insane. Maybe she should just ask Rachel out. But then Rachel wanted her to prove herself, so that wouldn't be enough. Nothing seemed enough.

Quinn was flipping through the newspaper while eating her toast when something caught her eyes. _I think the Universe is trying to help me, _and she smiled.


	14. Part 14

**Part 14**

Quinn had been standing on the same spot for almost half an hour. She was worried that the neighbors might start calling the police, but thank God it was Saturday and it was a nice spring day, so maybe a lot of them were out. The planning in her head seemed easy enough but the execution, not so much. She had knocked a few times, but it was so soft that no one could hear it. Sometimes she would take a few deep breaths and try to knock properly but she just couldn't bring herself to face what lies behind the door. She even thought of giving up a few times but could not bring herself to leave. And that was how she spent that half an hour.

She was looking at the doormat and prepping herself again when the door had suddenly opened in front of her. She thought of hiding but somehow she was rooted to the spot.

"Oh, hello."

"Hi," Quinn said.

"Can I help you with something? Oh, are you from the Christian group? Sorry, we're all Jewish here."

Quinn looked at her cross, "Oh no, no."

"Wait a minute, aren't you in Rachel's Glee Club?"

"Yes."

"Oh, come on in. Rachel didn't tell us that she's expecting a friend."

Quinn walked into Rachel's house and looked around, worried that Rachel's somewhere nearby.

"She didn't know I'm coming."

"Okay, let me get her."

"No," Quinn quickly stopped him, "I mean, not yet. I'm here to talk to you actually, well, to both her dads," she stammered a bit.

"Oh, this sounds serious. Come into the kitchen then."

They walked into the kitchen where the other Berry man was in the middle of chopping onions. He looked at them and smiled, "Hi, who's this?"

"Leroy, this is …"

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name's Quinn."

"Hi Quinn, that's Leroy and I'm Hiram. Leroy, Quinn is Rachel's friend from the Glee Club and she has something that she wants to talk to us about."

"Sounds serious, well, please have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? Would you like some pop or juice?"

"Erm, maybe I'll have a pop, thank you."

Leroy gave Quinn a glass of Coke which she took a big gulp instantly. Leroy and Hiram took the seats opposite her and were waiting anxiously for what she was about to say.

"Oh yeah, umm … " She took another big gulp. "I'm here," the kitchen felt very hot at the moment, "umm … to ask your permission," she looked at them, "umm … to take your daughter out."

"On a date?" Hiram asked.

Quinn gulped, "Yes."

Leroy and Hiram exchanged confused looks.

"Well … "

"Well … "

"Did she put you up to this?"

"No, she doesn't know anything about this. I thought that I should get your permission first before asking her."

They both nodded their heads and looked at each other again.

"If that's the case … "

"… then you have to take the Rachel's Potential Suitor Test."

Quinn looked at them hoping that they were joking around, but they looked very serious about it.

"Okay."

"Good. Let me grab the test booklet, which for some reason I like to have it lying around in the kitchen." Leroy grabbed a notepad that was lodged in between the recipe books.

"Okay, first of all, please state your full name."

"Lucy Quinn Fabray."

"As in Russell Fabray's daughter?"

Quinn looked down, worried that her father's reputation would not help her at all, "Yes."

"Okay," Leroy jotted something in the notepad and Hiram looked at it.

"What do you have plan for her tonight?"

"A dinner and a movie."

"Safe enough. Will you be driving?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever received a speeding ticket?"

"No."

"Have you ever consumed alcoholic beverages?"

"Erm … yes," Quinn bite her lips.

"Have you ever gotten drunk?"

Quinn's uncomfortable now, "Yes, but only once, or maybe twice and that's it. I don't intend to drink anymore, not until I'm legal. And even then, I don't intend to get drunk anymore, it's a horrible feeling."

Leroy and Hiram just nodded their heads. "So is it safe to say that there will be no consumption of alcoholic beverages tonight?"

"No! I mean there will be no drinking."

"Okay, now that we have that out, let's talk about the future. What's your plan after high school graduation?"

"I'm going to apply to a few universities next year, so I'll be going to college after high school."

"What are you going to major at?"

"I haven't really decided yet, might be Journalism or English Lit."

"Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?"

Quinn quickly made something up, "A successful journalist for Time magazine with a few books in publications."

"Okay, I think we have all the information that we need right now."

"Oh, one bonus question, if you only have one spot in your car, who would you give a ride to? Tony Danza or Jeff Goldblum?" Hiram asked.

"Erm … Jeff Goldblum," Quinn answered tentatively.

"Good. Now we're going to deliberate on this for a few minutes."

Leroy and Hiram turned around on their seats and Leroy tried so hard not to laugh that he had to cover his mouth. After a few minutes they turned back to face Quinn who looked like she was about to hear her sentencing.

"We have calculated your points. You have some high points and low points but overall it averages out to … passing points."

Quinn exhaled the breath that she didn't notice she was holding and tried to smile.

"You do get lots of high points for picking up Jeff Goldblum," Hiram smiled.

"And very high points for not going to accidentally make our little girl pregnant," Leroy continued.

Quinn's face instantly turned red and she looked at the table top.

"So with that said, you got our permission to date our daughter."

"Thank you," Quinn was still having trouble breathing after their last statement.

"I'll go upstairs now and tell her that you're here," Hiram offered.

"While waiting, you need to relax. The test is over and you pass. Come, let me serve you my famous apple pie," Leroy rubbed Quinn's back to calm her.

* * *

Hiram knocked on Rachel's door and walked in.

"What are you doing honey?"

"I'm writing songs. Ever since we won Regionals with that song I wrote, I feel inspired and I have all these ideas in my head."

"That's great. Anyway, there's someone downstairs who came here to ask our permission to ask you out."

"Finn's here?" Rachel looked like she didn't want to deal with him. "And why is he suddenly asking your permission? Is he trying to be a gentleman all of a sudden?"

"It's not Finn."

Rachel frowned, "Noah?"

"No."

"Jesse," Rachel sat upright.

"No, think someone blonde."

"Sam?" Rachel had that unbelievable look.

"Think someone that's not a boy, although Sam could be a girl's name."

"Quinn? Oh My God! She's here," Rachel raced to her door and peered downstairs.

"She's in the kitchen with your father."

"What should I do?"

"Do you want to go out with her?"

Rachel thought for a bit, "So she's here to ask your permission to take me out?"

"Yes."

"And what did you and daddy said."

Hiram laughed, "We put her through a test."

"What test?"

Hiram told her what happened and Rachel was horrified, "and in the end we said she got our permission. She looks like a nice, sweet girl, and very pretty. But it's up to you whether you want to go out with her or not."

"Okay, tell her I'll be down in a few minutes."

"Okay, although we do need to have this talk afterwards."

Rachel understood what he meant. Hiram left her room and Rachel was frantically looking for something to wear. She opened her door to call her dad.

"Wait dad, what is she wearing?"

"She's wearing a nice baby blue dress."

So Rachel put on her light pink dress and some make up and made her way to the kitchen. She heard some laughter and giggles. Her dads were telling some funny stories and she hoped it was not about her.

When she walked into the kitchen, her eyes were fixed on Quinn. It felt odd to see Quinn sitting in her kitchen, laughing and smiling with her dads.

When Quinn saw her, she gave a big smile, "Hey."

"Hi, so you want to talk to me?"

"Yeah."

Rachel indicated for Quinn to follow her and they went out to the hallway.

Rachel turned around to face her and Quinn bit her lips nervously. "So, I'm wondering that if you're not otherwise engaged at the moment, that maybe you would like to go out with me?"

"Have you been reading Jane Austen?"

"Yeah," Quinn smiled sheepishly.

"Well, if that's the case, I would happily oblige to your request."

They both laugh.

"Well, I'm ready to go."

"So you already said yes before I even asked?"

"I could have said no."

"But you're already dressed up."

"What? This? I dress up like this every day," Rachel smiled playfully. Quinn just shook her head.

They said their byes to Rachel's dads and got into Quinn's car. Quinn didn't say anything much after that and drove quietly towards their destination. Rachel saw that they were not heading towards Lima downtown; instead they were entering the highway.

"Where are we going?"

"Have you been to Massillon?"

"No. What's there?"

"You'll see."

"But isn't that like an hour drive?"

"Yeah, so if you want to grab something to eat …"

"No, that's fine. At least I'll be very hungry when we get there."

They were quiet for a bit.

"I can't believe you did that. You actually asked my dads' permission?"

"Might as well do it right," Quinn shrugged.

"But it could have gone all wrong, you know, with us being …" Rachel didn't finish the sentence but Quinn understood what she meant.

"Yeah, but I figured that with them being … you know, they wouldn't have a problem with it."

"I don't think they do. Although my dad already said that we're going to have a talk about this afterwards."

"I hope I'm not getting you into trouble," Quinn glanced at Rachel who just shook her head. "By the way, how did Finn do with the test?"

Rachel laughed, "I'm sorry about that. My dad told me what they put you through. There's no such test. They're big jokers. You see, they can play a good game too."

Quinn rolled her eyes hoping that Rachel could see it.

"I'm glad you passed. I don't think Finn would."

Even though it was a bit more than an hour drive, it didn't seem that long. They spent the time singing in the car. Rachel seemed to know every song lyrics. When they arrived at downtown Massillon, the first thing Rachel saw when she got out of the car was the historical Lions Lincoln Theatre and her jaw dropped.

"Oh My God Quinn! They're showing 'Funny Girl' tonight!"

Quinn smiled, "I have two tickets."

"So that's the reason we're here?"

"Well, among other things."

"This is already the best date ever!" Rachel was so giddy; Quinn smiled happily at her.

"The show's at 7, so we have time for dinner."

"Oh yeah, I'm hungry!"

They walked around for a bit and had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. Rachel said that she would be fine to have dinner at any restaurant but Quinn wanted to try pure vegetarian food. She thought that they were quite tasty and the fake meat did taste like meat, except knowing that it was fake meat made your brain knew that you're not actually eating meat.

"So, apart from driving hours to get here just so that we can watch 'Funny Girl' on the big screen, which is really awesome, why else are we here?"

"We're not in Lima anymore."

"Where the chance of someone knowing us is almost as slim to none?"

"Yeah, who would drive for hours just to see an old movie? Well, except for us of course."

"How did you know about this?"

"I saw it in the paper this morning. I've wanted to ask you out. I'm sorry it took so long, I just didn't know how. This is new to me."

"This is new to me too, you know, going out on a date with a girl."

"Yeah, that sounds weird, isn't it?"

Rachel wondered whether Quinn had a change of heart. "Is this weird to you?"

"In a way it is. I mean, we hardly hang out in school, and suddenly here we are having dinner. I feel like I know you, but I don't know you at the same time. I mean most of the things I knew about you, it was through somebody else. Rachel, I want to get to know you."

Rachel smiled, "Well, I want to know you too, especially since I didn't know that I was actually talking to you."

"Are you still angry at me?"

"Angry? No. But I still haven't forgiven you. You have a lot to make up for. You put me through a ringer. You made me believe something that's not real. Quinn, you wanted to hurt me."

"Past tense," Quinn reminded her. "I'm really sorry. I hope someday I'll be able to make it up to you, but I hope you'll give me a chance."

"Well, we are here in Massillon having dinner, right?"

"Yeah." Quinn looked at her watch. "Hey, the movie's about to start soon. We have to go."

Quinn paid for dinner and they made their way to the theatre. The theatre was pack with Barbra's fans and musical theatre fans. Quinn was relieved that she didn't see anyone familiar.

Throughout the movie, Quinn always stole a glance at Rachel. She smiled whenever she saw how happy Rachel looked and felt like hugging her whenever Rachel looked sad. Sometimes her eyes would travel from Rachel's legs upwards. She was glad that Rachel was too engrossed with the movie to notice that she spent most of her time looking at Rachel. _Have I really fallen for her?_

The movie ended and they made their way back to the car.

"So how many times have you seen this movie including this one?"

"God, I don't know. I think I stopped counting when it got to double digits. Is there a movie that you've seen so many times?"

"Yeah. I really love 'Reality Bites'. No matter how many times I've seen it, every time it's on TV, I have to watch it. Have you seen that movie?"

"No. What's it about?"

"It's about these four friends that just graduated college and they didn't know what to do with their lives. They're pretty much slackers, with ambitions, but maybe didn't have enough drive to push them towards their dreams. But essentially it's a love story."

"Sounds interesting, I would love to see it."

"Maybe you can come over my place sometime and we can watch it. Or we could watch it at your place."

"Sure, at some point," Rachel smiled playfully as she got into the car.

The drive back was pretty quiet, both lost in their own thoughts. They reached Rachel's house just a bit before 11. Quinn parked at the driveway.

Rachel turned on the passenger's seat, "I had a wonderful time. Thanks for the dinner and the movie and the drive."

"You're welcome. I had a wonderful time too."

They looked at each other for a few seconds.

Quinn broke the silence, "I think you better go in or you're going to break your curfew."

"Yeah. Don't you have a curfew?"

"My mom's happy enough that I come home every night."

"Okay. I'll see you on Monday then. Have a nice Sunday."

"You too. Good night."

"Good night. Drive safe."

Rachel got out of the car and waved at Quinn. Quinn waved back and waited until Rachel walked inside before she drove off.

Even though Rachel had a wonderful time, she was kind of disappointed with the ending. She thought that at least she would get a hug. The closest they had been was in the movie theatre. Even when they were walking, Quinn had put some distance. She wondered what this all means. _Maybe Quinn was just testing the water?_


	15. Part 15

**Part 15**

Monday came and Rachel was excited to go to school. The dynamics between Quinn and her had changed and she wondered how they would be in school. But as the day passed, she had not seen a glimpse of Quinn. It was nothing to worry about though. It was quite common for her to not see Quinn at all until lunch hour. She got her wish in the cafeteria when she saw Quinn was standing in line with Mercedes. Rachel was already seated with Kurt. She saw that they paid for the food and were turning around to find a table. Quinn saw Rachel and smiled but then the smile turned to a frown and Rachel wondered what had caused it.

"Hey Rachel," Finn said while setting his food tray next to her.

"Hi," Rachel smiled weakly. When she turned to look back at Quinn, she had gone on to sit on another table with Mercedes.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm good, just that my body's bruised all over. We played paint ball yesterday. It was pretty brutal. How's your weekend?"

"Oh, it was pretty good, watched a movie, hanging out with my dads, stuff like that."

"Well, I'm wondering if you would like to go watch a movie on Friday night. Thor's coming out this weekend." Rachel looked like she's about to protest. "Just as friends, you know, it's kind of nice to hang out with you outside of school."

"Kurt, are you coming along?"

"A movie about Gods wreaking havoc," Kurt made a face. "No, not really my thing."

Rachel gave it a thought and she felt there was nothing wrong with going out with Finn as friends. Besides she didn't owe it to anyone not to go out with whomever she pleases, "Yeah, sounds good."

"Great! I'll check out the show time later."

* * *

Rachel used the bathroom after the end of the last period, and again Quinn startled her.

"Can you please stop doing that?"

"Do what?"

"You know, appeared out of nowhere."

Quinn smiled mischievously, "Do you want me to leave?"

"I didn't say that."

"Maybe next time I'll hum or something, so that you won't get startled. I don't want you to think that I'm stalking you," Quinn said playfully.

"So is this how's it going to be? When we're in school, you can only talk to me in the bathroom?"

Quinn looked down, "For now."

"But we've talked in hallways before."

"I think we've argued in hallways."

"So you're not ready for people to see that you're being nice to me."

"I'm not ready for the implications."

Rachel understood Quinn's worried tone. "Shouldn't you be at the gym now watching whatever it is you're watching on your laptop?" Rachel asked sarcastically.

"Last time I was watching cute animal videos before you interrupted me."

"Oh. Well, how would I know? If you haven't done what you did, then I wouldn't have thought what I thought."

"What?"

"Huh?"

They both laughed.

"Anyway, how are you?" Quinn looked concerned.

"I'm good, how about you?"

"Yeah, I'm good too. How's the talk with the dads?"

"It went well, I think. They asked what's going on between us and I said I'm not sure."

"Did you tell them about what happened, that whole MySpace thing?"

"No." Rachel shook her head and pictured what would happen if she did, "If they know, I think you'll get a restraining order."

"Oh." Quinn looked terrified of the thoughts too.

"They also asked how long I've been attracted to girls and I said I'm not sure. So there were a lot of 'I'm not sure' and I said that once I'm sure, I'll tell them."

"Hmm."

"Will you ever tell your mom?"

"No," Quinn was quick to answer.

"Ever?" Rachel frowned.

"Maybe someday. But definitely not while I'm still living with her. Our relationship is fragile enough. I don't want to destroy it."

They looked at each other but not knowing what to say.

"Hey, I have to go to Cheerios practice soon."

"How are things between you and Santana?"

Quinn's face hardened. "We're not talking, which is fine. Brittany's trying to get us to talk though. I'm still too angry at her."

"But at least she was honest."

"Are you defending her now?" Quinn looked at her disbelievingly.

"No, I'm just stating a fact. I'm angry at her too, so don't look at me like that."

"I have to go."

Quinn was about to open the bathroom door when Rachel said, "I'm going out with Finn on Friday night, just so you know. Finn and I are still friends, so that shouldn't be a problem to … everyone."

"Yeah, I have plans on Friday night too. Bye." Quinn said without looking at Rachel and walked out.

Rachel stood wondering. How did things get turn around? How did Quinn become angry at her instead? _No, I can't let Quinn dictate this._

* * *

The next day, around the same time, Rachel was in the bathroom again. The bathroom tends to be empty around this time because all the classes had finished. Rachel was ready this time. She waited by the sink with her arms crossed.

When Quinn walked in, she was the one who got surprised.

"Are you waiting for me?"

"No. I just love the comfort of bathroom while waiting for my dad to pick me up," Rachel teased. Quinn rolled her eyes. "I saw you were campaigning with Finn at the courtyard this afternoon. You were giving away muffins. I know you saw me. How come I don't get any muffins? Don't you want my vote?"

"You can't have those muffins, they have eggs."

"How thoughtful of you," Rachel was being sarcastic.

"Are you angry that I don't give you muffins?" Quinn was confused.

"I'm not angry, and it's not about the muffins."

"Then what is it about?"

"It's about you ignoring me in public. If this is the way you're proving yourself, I don't think you're proving much here," Rachel's tone was teasing, so Quinn relaxed her posture.

"I thought you like the date."

"I was blinded by Barbra."

Quinn smirked. "Hey, do you think we can … you know … like chat or something, like the way we used to?" Quinn asked shyly.

Rachel's tone suddenly changed to aggressive, "And who should I be talking to? 'Sky Splits', the person who likes to leave nasty comments, who like to remind me of how many puppies I've killed with my voice, or 'Arnstein', the fake person who toyed with my life for 4 months?"

Quinn swallowed very slowly, "So you are still angry at me."

Rachel shook her head to clear her mind, "I'm sorry. It's just that being reminded of that makes me angry again."

"Okay, I guess no chatting then. Hey, I have to go to Cheerios practice now. I'll see you around then. Bye."

Quinn walked out of the bathroom and again leaving Rachel to wonder. How was it possible for Quinn to turn this around and made her felt guilty instead?

* * *

They did not meet in the bathroom anymore for the rest of the week. It was mostly because Rachel had not been making any bathroom visits after school ended. During Glee Club meeting, Mr Schue assigned them songs from Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' album to sing in the next meeting. Finn sat next to Rachel the whole time, but Rachel had been stealing glances at Quinn who was sitting next to Sam. It looked like they were back to being friends.

Friday night came and Finn picked up Rachel to see the movie. For once he had picked a movie that she actually enjoyed. After the movie, Rachel brought something up.

"Hey, did you read the Muckracker today?"

"No, what's in it?"

"There's this rumor about … somebody. I'm just curious to know whether it's true." Rachel turned to Finn and gave that wide-eyed look and a big smile that she knew he can't resist. "Do you want to do a stake out?"

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in Finn's truck outside of American Family Motel, and for some reason Finn had a binocular just lying around in the truck.

"So what are we looking for?" Finn asked.

"I don't know yet. We'll know when we see it." Rachel looked around using the binocular.

"How long do we have to stay here? Not that I'm not enjoying spending this time with you … in my truck, it's just that I don't plan on spending my Friday night spying on people."

"Shush," Rachel quieted Finn because the subject that she was spying on had made an appearance, coming out from the motel room. Rachel looked shocked.

"What is it?" Finn took the binocular from her and looked at the same direction. He saw Quinn was talking to Sam and then hugging him before leaving. Then Sam walked back into the room. "Oh, I guess they're back together. Hmm, I never thought Quinn would do it in some cheap motel room."

They saw Quinn got into her car and drove off.

Rachel was so quiet and hardly moved that Finn began to worry. "Are you okay?"

"Aren't you angry? I thought you like Quinn."

"I do, but she had been rejecting me all this time. Now at least I know why. I just don't understand why she needs to hide it."

"Maybe because she's a big liar that's stacking up multiple conquests everywhere."

"Well, it's Quinn. It wouldn't surprise me. She manipulates people to get her way."

"And you still want to be with her?"

"I'm a teenage guy and she's beautiful and has a great body." Rachel stared at him hard. "But having said that, if I had to choose between you and her, I choose you all the way."

Rachel snorted, "You're only saying that because I'm here, but thank you anyway. At least you're honest, unlike some people. Can you please take me home?"

* * *

The school week had started again. Rachel had been thinking the whole weekend on the best way to approach this subject with Quinn. Should she even ask Quinn about it? It's not that she has any claim towards Quinn. But she still thought that it was not right for Quinn to say that she likes her and sleeping with someone else. So she decided to face the bull by the horn. After school ended, she went to the bathroom and waited. She wasn't sure if Quinn was going to come. They had not met there since Tuesday last week.

Quinn walked in a few minutes later and smiled softly at her, but instantly looked worried when Rachel looked angrily at her.

"What did I do this time?"

"You tell me."

"Why do you sound like a jealous girlfriend?" Quinn became defensive.

"I'm not jealous anything and I am _not_ your girlfriend. I'm just questioning your motive."

"My motive? You know what, I haven't talked to you since last week, and the first thing you did is accuse me of … I don't even know what. I came in here to ask you how you're doing and all you did is attack me."

"Fine, let me ask you then, what did you do on Friday night?"

Quinn was startled, "I was hanging out with a friend."

"Anyone I know?"

"Obviously you know something here, so rather than all this questioning, why don't you just tell me."

"Okay, what were you doing with Sam at American Family Motel?"

"Were you spying on me?" Quinn looked at her incredulously.

"No! I was … in the neighborhood."

Quinn frowned, "First of all, I don't think I have to explain myself to you. And second of all, I hope that you could trust me."

"Trust?" Rachel snorted, "Trust is gained. After everything that happened, how am I supposed to trust you?"

Quinn gritted her teeth, "Guess this is doom before it even starts," and she walked out of the bathroom.

Rachel was left alone in the bathroom. _God, one of these days, can she at least let me walk out on her?_

* * *

Quinn and Finn performed 'I Don't Want To Know' during Glee Club meeting. Rachel thought they sounded great, which made her wondered, _when did they practice?_ She couldn't help but glared at both of them. How dare Finn to perform this song with Quinn after what they saw? But then Finn was mostly looking at her while he was singing. Quinn was also looking at her but she was angrily singing it to her. It was a bit weird sitting there with both of them dedicating that song to her. She hoped none of the others realized.

* * *

A few days later, the truth about Sam got out and Rachel felt so bad of what she had accused Quinn of doing. She wrote a note and put it in Quinn's locker asking to meet her in the bathroom after school. She waited in the bathroom longer than usual and she thought that Quinn wasn't coming, but Quinn walked in later.

"Hi." Rachel said softly.

"Hi."

"How are you?"

Quinn shrugged, "Could have been better."

"I'm really sorry for accusing you of … I know I have no right, especially since we're not … anything. It's just that when I saw you walked out of the motel room with him, I just can't think straight," Rachel laughed at the pun and Quinn smiled too. "It's just that even though some parts of me want to believe everything you said to me before, the other parts of me, that are louder, believes that I'm still being played."

Quinn walked slowly to the sink, where Rachel was leaning against. "Rachel, I know I have a long way to go to make it up to you, but I can't do that if you're going to keep bringing this up. If you really want to give me a chance, you have to open yourself up and learn to trust me."

Rachel took a deep breath, "I can do that. There might be some momentary lapses though."

"As expected," Quinn smiled. "Well, before your schedule's fully booked, would you like to go out with me on Saturday?"

"Yes, I would love to."


	16. Part 16

**Part 16**

Rachel was waiting downstairs for Quinn to come and pick her up. Quinn said that she would come by around 2 p.m. and Rachel had waited a bit earlier than that. The reason being was that she didn't want Quinn to be interrogated by her dads. The bell rang a few minutes before 2 and she looked through the peephole, it was Quinn. She quickly said her byes to her dads before they could say anything.

Rachel opened the door, "Hi! Let's go."

When they were inside Quinn's car, she asked, "Are we running away from your dads?"

"Yeah, they have that inquisitive look today, and I'm not ready to answer anything."

Quinn just nodded her head and began driving. Rachel saw that they were entering the highway again.

"So where are we going this time?"

"Don't you like surprises?"

"I do."

"Then, relax and enjoy the view."

"Fine," Rachel pouted. "At least can I know how long will the drive take this time? You know, for reference."

"About one and a half hour."

"Do you like driving?"

"Yeah, I find it cathartic."

"Hmm."

"Especially in long drive and when the road is clear. It's just you and the music and it gives you a lot of time to think."

"Well, you wouldn't have time to think with me yapping. So I'll be quiet now." Rachel made an exaggerated action of zipping her mouth.

Quinn laughed, "No, that's fine. If that's what I want right now, then I'll have this drive on my own."

"You know, you seem more relax when there's no one around. You laugh more freely, smile bigger. Why is that?"

Quinn glanced at her, "Maybe because of the present company," she raised her eyebrow seductively.

Rachel felt her face flushed, so she turned to look out the window. "Hey, are we going to Columbus?"

"Yeah, I thought we can hang out at Easton for a bit."

"So is this a date or is this two girls hanging out at the mall?"

Quinn looked thoughtful, "I think it's more like a compatibility test, to see if we have the same mall attitude. Because some expert said that can make or break a relationship," Quinn said playfully.

Rachel laughed and leaned back on her seat. They spent the rest of the ride just chatting about nothing in particular.

They arrived at the mall some time later and grabbed some smoothie from Planet Smoothie to drink while they did their window shopping. Quinn was observing Rachel the whole time. She was worried that Rachel was one of those girls that would walk into every store to window shop. But she was glad to find that their style was pretty similar, except they do have different preferences. Quinn's favorite clothing store was Anthropologie, while Rachel preferred Forever 21. They tried some clothes and shoes, and modelled for each other. Quinn ended up buying a skirt from Forever 21 and Rachel bought a top from Anthropologie. They spent quite some time at Barnes & Noble, both showing the books that they loved and talked passionately about them. They both enjoyed going through Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn, and smelling and trying lotions and perfumes at Bath & Body Works and LUSH. They both admired Coach bags and Tiffany's jewelleries. Overall, the window shopping trip had been very enjoyable.

Quinn looked at her watch and it was half to 7, so she suggested that they left the mall.

"So where are we heading now?"

"Remember, less question more surprise."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "If you really want to surprise me, you might as well just blind fold me."

Quinn had a cheeky smile, "Is that a suggestion?" Rachel blushed but didn't answer. "Oh, for future reference, I got it."

They went to Park of Roses, which was about 15 minutes' drive from the mall. Quinn opened the car's trunk and took out a picnic mat and basket. Rachel looked completely surprised with what she saw in the trunk.

"Can I help?"

"No, that's okay," although Quinn was struggling to close the trunk with both her hands full. "Okay, maybe you can help close the trunk."

They found a spot under a tree and not that far from the gazebo. There were quite a number of people at the park but their spot was quite hidden from other prying eyes. Rachel looked around wondering why there were many people there, and it looked like a marching band was getting ready to play at the gazebo.

"It's the Summer Concert Series. It started today," Quinn explained.

Rachel looked so delighted, "You brought me here for a picnic at the park with live outdoor music?" Quinn smiled shyly. "Quinn, this is so … sweet. I never knew that you can be … so romantic."

Quinn can't bear to look at Rachel at the moment, so she busied herself with taking out the contents of the picnic basket.

"Well, what's in the basket?"

"I know that you like to eat and I like to cook," Rachel chuckled, "so I made us vegetable paella and toffee pecan pudding."

Rachel was so touched, "You are amazing. You made all this?"

"This morning. My mom wondered who's the lucky boy I'm dating."

"What did you say?"

"I told her the truth, that I'm having picnic at the park with a friend."

"A friend?"

"Well, that's what we are now, isn't it?"

"Yeah, we're friends."

Quinn set up the plates and cutleries.

"Although she said that I would never do this to just any friend," Quinn smiled mischievously.

A few minutes later, the Clintonville Community Band started playing. They played some marching tunes and traditional concert band pieces. They ate quietly while enjoying the music and the atmosphere. Some old couples were dancing to the tunes and Rachel smiled looking at them.

"I love seeing old couples. They look like they're still in love even after all those years," Quinn said while looking at them too.

Rachel looked at Quinn and only then she realized that they were leaning close to each other. They were both sitting on the mat. Quinn was leaning on her right arm and Rachel did the same but on her left arm. Quinn turned to look at Rachel and was completely surprised at how close their faces were and she quickly sat straight and smiled shyly. After that, Rachel realized that Quinn always tried to keep some distance between them.

The concert ended close to 9 o'clock and they drove back to Lima right away. They didn't speak much on the way home. When they arrived, Quinn parked at driveway.

"I had a really wonderful time today. Thank you for the shopping trip and picnic and … just about everything."

Quinn chuckled, "You're welcome. I had a great time too."

"So …" Rachel drawled out the word.

"So …" Quinn imitated her.

"I better go in, close to my curfew."

"Yeah, you should."

Rachel sighed, "I'll see you on Monday."

"See ya."

Rachel gave a final smile and exited the car. She waved to Quinn, opened her door, walked inside and turned around to give another wave. Quinn was still looking at her and waved back, and then she drove off.

Again, Rachel felt unsatisfied with how the day ended. She wondered who was holding back more, Quinn or her.


	17. Part 17

**Part 17**

Quinn thought that the two dates she had with Rachel had gone very well. She was horrified when Rachel's dads had put her to that test, and even more when she found out that it was a fake test. Maybe she wasn't as sharp as she was because previously she could detect something phony from a mile away, or maybe when it comes to Rachel, just like Rachel said, _she can't think straight_. She didn't know how she could do any better than the last date. She already went out of her comfort zone by having picnic in public. To casual observers, it must have looked like two friends having a picnic. She thought about the time when their faces were just inches apart and how she had panicked. She was a bit uptight after that, and when she dropped Rachel off, she saw the same look from the first date, that told her Rachel was expecting her to do something more. But she wasn't sure what Rachel had wanted. Even if she had an idea of what it was, she didn't think it was something that she could do, or something that she was prepared to do yet. She had thought of kissing Rachel, but every time she came up with a serious case of over-thinking, like _what should I do, am I suppose to make the move first, what if I do it wrong, what does it mean if I like it, what does it mean if I don't like it?_ So she took the safest approach, don't do anything. At the moment she enjoyed Rachel's company and this new friendship. She had never had this with anyone else. All the boys that she dated had always been just that, they never had the kind of friendship where they can be comfortable enough talk about anything. Her friendship with Mercedes, even though it was great, their conversation can be limited at times. She didn't feel like sharing everything with Mercedes, not because she didn't think Mercedes wouldn't like it or couldn't handle it, but there was just something in her that stop her from opening herself fully to other people. But with Rachel, she felt sort of liberated, like she can finally just be herself without having to put any mask on. _Could it be that all I want is a best friend? _Quinn fell asleep with that last thought in her head.

* * *

Rachel went to the girls' bathroom at the end of the school day on Monday. Mostly because she knew that if she wanted to talk to Quinn at school, that's the only place and time that they could. Quinn walked in later and instantly smiled at her.

"Hi, how's your day?" Quinn asked.

"It was good, but Mr Henry gave too much homework," Rachel was being a bit whiny.

Quinn, as usual, would just lean on the bathroom door while looking at Rachel.

"What did you do on Sunday?"

"Just hanging out with my dads, helping out with gardening. How about you?"

"Helped my mom clean the house. That place is too big for us, we should get a helper."

They were done with small talks, and on to the important subject.

"Are you excited for the Prom this Friday?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah."

"How's the campaign going?"

Quinn grunted, "It's a pain to campaign with Finn, but I think we have a pretty good shot. Santana has been a bitch; she's been defacing our posters. And I was also annoyed with Puck for still for wanting to run with Lauren. I swear all of them just want to see Finn and I toppled from the top."

Rachel didn't say anything, she let Quinn let out her frustration.

"So who are you going to the prom with?" Quinn was curious.

"I don't know. No one has asked me yet. And at this stage, I don't think anyone would."

"I would love to ask you to the prom," Quinn said softly and Rachel smiled, "but I can't." Rachel nodded her understanding. "Why don't you go to the prom with Mercedes? She's not going with anyone either. Hey, in fact, why don't you guys go with Sam too?" Quinn looked excited with her idea.

"I don't know."

"Come on, think about it. You'll be quite safe with Mercedes and Sam."

"You want to keep me safe?"

"I want to keep you away from other people."

Rachel laughed at Quinn's protectiveness, which was quite funny given their current situation.

"Hey, I have to – "

"No! Let me go first." Rachel cut Quinn off.

"Why?"

"Just because."

Quinn was confused but she relented anyway, "Okay."

She moved away from the door and Rachel walked passed to exit the bathroom. She was so entranced with Rachel and can't keep her eyes away from her.

* * *

The next day, Rachel was at her locker when Finn approached her.

"Hi."

"Hi Finn, how are you?"

"I'm fine, I think. Well, I'm still alive … I think." He leaned on the lockers.

Rachel looked worriedly at him, "What's wrong?"

"Quinn had been coming down hard on me. I'm regretting that I ever proposed for us to run the campaign together. But hey, it's too late now." He looked at Rachel, "I wish I can ask you to go to the prom with me, because you're the one that I actually want to go with."

Rachel was speechless. After a few minutes, she said, "Hey, you'll have a great time with Quinn."

Finn snorted, "Yeah, right. Oh God, suddenly I remember that I'm supposed to get a corsage. I know I'm going to pick the wrong one and Quinn will be all pissed off -"

"Hey, just get her something simple. Girls like Quinn you don't want to do anything that's going to distract them from their face. So ask for gardenia, with a light green ribbon wrapped around it to match her eyes." Rachel suddenly felt sad that Finn was going to be the one that would be giving it to Quinn.

Finn smiled, "Thanks Rachel, I know I can count on you. Hey, maybe we can at least have one dance at the prom."

"Yeah, maybe."

* * *

Rachel thought that she must have been living in the Twilight Zone. Both Quinn and Finn were vying for her affection, and to think that more than a year ago, she was busy plotting of ways to steal Finn from Quinn. In one hand, there was Finn, the All-American boy who was cute and tall and athletic, pretty much the dream boyfriend for most teenage girls. On the other hand, there was Quinn, the beautiful dangerous Quinn, the kind of girl that all boys want to have and the kind that parents told them to stay away from. On the surface, she's the cliché of a mean girl, but once you scratch the surface (if she allowed you to), she was so much more than that, and Rachel loved that she was allowed to see it.

Should she take the simple safer road that will cause her less heartache, or should she take the winding complicated path. Suddenly it reminded her of a Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken". She searched for her collective poem book; she knew it was somewhere in her book shelf. She found it at last and read the poem again and again. The last few sentences made her think:

'Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,  
I took the one less traveled by,  
And that has made all the difference.'

She wasn't sure if she could properly apply the poem to her situation, but all the same, it made her wondered, how many people have been patient enough to take that road off the beaten path.

* * *

In the end Rachel did go to the prom with Mercedes and Sam, but they decided to have snacks at Breadstix beforehand. Quinn and Finn had also stopped by and went to their table to say hi. Rachel and Quinn exchanged a quick glance, both eyeing the other's dresses but it was too quick that nobody else noticed.

The prom went quite smoothly. Principal Figgins made Glee Club performed at the Prom, so they took turn singing. Quinn was dancing with Finn but she was looking around for Rachel. Finn was actually doing the same thing. Occasionally they would look at each other and pretended to be having fun.

Quinn finally saw Rachel and she was already on the stage ready to sing. Rachel performed "Jar of Hearts" and Quinn wondered why she picked such a sad song to sing at a prom. She continued dancing with Finn while Rachel was singing. A few times she felt Finn turning her around so that he was facing the stage. She didn't mind it because she couldn't look at Rachel at the moment, the song lyrics were making her sad. But as the song was about to end, she turned them around so that she was the one facing the stage. Rachel was looking at her and she looked like someone had broken her heart.

A few more songs later and it was time for Principal Figgins to announce the Junior Prom King and Queen. Quinn and Finn made their way on stage, along with the other candidates. He announced the Junior Prom King first and it went to Karofsky. Quinn gave Finn a sorry look, but he didn't look too bummed out about it. Then it was the time for the Junior Prom Queen. Quinn held her breath. She might not show just how much she wanted this because too many things happened in the past few weeks, but deep down inside, especially standing on stage at the moment waiting to hear her name being called out, it really blew her when Principal Figgins said Kurt's name instead. _Kurt?_ She was angry and humiliated. How was it possible for people to vote for Kurt when he wasn't even a nominee or even a girl? She looked at Rachel angrily who was looking at her with concern. She couldn't stand there anymore, so she ran to the nearest bathroom. Rachel followed her into the bathroom.

"Quinn, you need to calm down."

"This is your fault." Quinn was accusing Rachel and it made her angry. She chased after Quinn because she was concerned, but instead she got this accusation. "Nobody ever would have voted for me because they know he would rather be with you."

Rachel couldn't believe what she was hearing. It was like everything that they had been through didn't matter just because of a tiara, a fake one at that.

"You're blaming me for your lost? Quinn, they're not voting against you, they voted to humiliate Kurt." Quinn was quiet, but Rachel could see tears running down her cheeks. "For what it's worth, I voted for you."

Quinn smiled but she was still not looking at Rachel.

"Rachel, I feel terrified all the time."

Rachel took some paper towels and wet them in the sink.

"What are you so scared of?"

Then she passed it to Quinn who took it to dab her eyes.

"The future … all this is gone," Quinn pointed to her face.

"Look, you have nothing to be scared of. I've said this before, but let me say it again. You're a very pretty girl Quinn, the prettiest girl I've ever met, but you're a lot more than that."

Rachel's words touched her but also made her felt even worse because just a few minutes ago, she had gone back to her old ways and accused Rachel of something that she had no part of.

"Here," Rachel took the paper towel from Quinn, "May I?" Quinn nodded her head.

Rachel softly patted under Quinn's eyes to get rid of the running mascara. She came closer and closer to Quinn. The action was quite intimate that Quinn suddenly stepped back. Rachel sighed and threw away the paper towel.

"Come on, let's go back in there and dance the night away."

Quinn laughed softly and followed her back to the gym. They found Mercedes and Sam dancing together and joined them.

"Hey," Finn came over, "are …" he was looking back and forth between Rachel and Quinn, "you … okay?" He was confused when he saw Rachel followed Quinn when she stormed off, and then they had come back to the gym together, all smiling.

"Yeah, let's dance," Quinn said.

_**Disclaimer:**__ Some of the words in the bathroom scene and the corsage scene aren't mind, they're RIB's properties. If you've seen enough of these scenes, you know which lines :-) They're just too good not to be used._


	18. Part 18

**Part 18**

It was Monday, the week after the prom. McKinley had gone back to normal, no more posters hanging out everywhere. Rachel opened her locker and a note fell out. She opened and read it:

'Hi, we have some cheerleading event after school and we will be driving off right after the last class, but I can't wait to ask you this. If you're not doing anything this Saturday, would you like to go out with me? But it will be for the whole day, so I'm hoping that it would be okay with your dads.

P/S: I forgot to tell you, I think you look lovely in your prom dress.'

Quinn didn't sign the note but it was obvious to Rachel who it was from. She re-read the note a few more times. _What does she have planned this time?_ A big figure suddenly loomed before her, Rachel quickly folded the note.

"Hey, what's that?"

"Oh, it's nothing, just one of my old notes. Hey, how are you?"

"I'm good. I'm just glad that prom's over. Now I don't have to pretend anymore with Quinn."

"I don't get it. I remember you were chasing her after we broke up, what change?"

"After running the prom campaign with her, it reminded me of why we broke up last time. Well, apart from her lying about me being the baby daddy." Finn looked at Rachel, "besides my heart is still set on someone else."

Rachel sighed, "Look Finn, I've told you before, I just want us to be friends. I like us as friends but … that's all, okay?"

Finn nodded sadly, "Okay."

"I think you're a nice guy and you should broaden your horizon. There are other girls besides me and Quinn, or any girls in the Glee Club for that matter. Like that girl Missy, I saw how she's looking at you during prom."

"Really?" Finn wondered curiously. "But isn't she going out with Rick the Stick?"

"Oh, okay, forget about that one then."

* * *

Quinn was already waiting for Rachel in the bathroom after school the next day.

"How come you're already here?" Rachel asked.

"My class finished early today. Mrs Henderson wasn't feeling very well."

"Oh. So how was the cheerleading event?"

"It was good. There's no real competition though, all the other teams were pretty lame."

"I saw you and Santana exchanged smiles at the prom. Are you two okay now?"

Quinn shrugged, "That's what sharing a loss can do to you."

"Did she apologize or did you apologize?"

"No, we don't do that. Every time we have a fight, after a while we would act as if nothing happens."

"That's not good."

"It works for us."

"Aren't you friends?"

"Friends? I don't think that's the term for us. We're frenemies at best. Hey, let's not talk about Santana. So have you decided on this Saturday?"

"Yeah, I've asked my dads and they're fine with it. But they do want to know if we are going to cross the State line."

Quinn chuckled, "No, still in Ohio."

"Okay."

"I'll give you the instructions later, but now I have to go." Rachel looked like she was about to protest. "Yes, got it, you want to go out first."

Rachel gave a soft smile, "Yes. Bye."

* * *

A few days later, she received another note from Quinn.

'Hi, here's what you need for Saturday:

- Comfortable clothes (pants is better) and strapped shoes

- Change of clothes

I'll pick you up at 8 a.m.'

_That early? Where are we going?_

* * *

Quinn was about to get out of her car when she saw Rachel was already making her way to the car. Rachel got in and put her bag at the back seat, "Good morning!"

"Hi. Good morning. Are we running away from your dads again?"

"No, it's just that I don't want you to ring the doorbell and wake them up. They had a pretty late night last night and they're always so cranky when they don't get their beauty sleep."

Quinn nodded, "Okay, let's get moving then."

"So how long is the drive this time and why do we have to leave this early?"

"About two hours and there's a reason."

"Hmm … always so mysterious. Hey, can we stop by for some coffee?"

"Sure, and I have some muffins too, some of them are vegan."

They grabbed some coffee and made their way to the intended destination. Quinn saw that Rachel was yawning even after that cup of coffee.

"Sorry, I didn't get much sleep last night. I was reading a book and got too engrossed to put it down," Rachel explained.

"It's okay; you can sleep while I drive."

Rachel smiled, "Have you been listening to Melissa Etheridge?"

"Huh?"

"Don't you know that song?" Quinn shook her head. "Okay, let me sing it. I think it goes something like …"

Rachel was trying to remember the song lyrics but it was hard with the radio playing, so she turned it down.

"Ah, here it goes. Come on baby, let's get out of this town, I got a full tank of gas with the top rolled down, there's a chill in my bones, I don't want to be left alone, so baby you can sleep while I drive …"

Rachel was looking at Quinn the whole time she was singing.

"I'll pack my bag and load up my guitar, in my pocket I'll carry my harp, I got some money I saved, enough to get underway, and baby you can sleep while I drive …"

Quinn glanced at her once in a while; she still needed to pay attention to the road.

"We'll go through Tuscan up to Santa Fe, and Barbara in Nashville says we're welcome to stay, I'll buy you glasses in Texas, a hat from New Orleans, and in the morning you can tell me your dreams …"

Rachel quirked her eyebrows and Quinn laughed.

"You know I've seen it before this mist that covers your eyes, you've been looking for something that's not in your life, my intentions are true, won't you take me with you, and baby you can sleep while I drive."

Rachel's voice turned soft towards the end and Quinn smiled softly at her.

"That was really good. Yeah, I've never heard that song before."

Rachel did end up sleeping all the way to their destination. Quinn parked the car and called Rachel's name a few times to wake her up, but she was still sleeping, so she shook Rachel's arm lightly.

"Rachel, Rachel, we're here."

"Hmm …" Rachel stirred lightly and turned to face Quinn. "What?" She said groggily, Quinn thought it was pretty cute.

"We're here. Come on," Quinn got out of the car.

Rachel looked out the window and was instantly awake. She got out of the car to look at her surroundings, and then she looked at Quinn.

"You took me to Cedar Point! Quinn, I can't believe this. How do you know I love roller coasters?"

"I heard you told Kurt and Mercedes that you can't wait to try the new WindSeeker ride."

"Have you been eavesdropping all this time?"

Quinn just laughed it off. "Come on. I already have the tickets."

"Quinn, you've spent so much money already. Why don't I pay for food?"

"No, I took you out on this date, so let me pay for everything."

"But – "

"You can pay for everything when _you_ take me out on a date."

"Okay, deal."

Quinn was surprised with her answer; she didn't think that Rachel would take that as a challenge. "So … which ride should we take first?"

"What's your favorite?"

"The classic, Magnum, but I love Raptor and Mantis too."

"Me too. We have to ride those at least twice." Quinn was amused with Rachel's eagerness.

"Okay, how about we do a clockwise?"

"Oh no, I didn't bring my camera. If I'd have known we'll be coming here, I would have brought my camera."

"It's okay, I have mine."

"Yay! We can take lots of pictures."

They started with Raptor and since it was still early, they didn't have to wait that long for the ride. After the ride, they both bought the pictures of them in Raptor.

"I look like I was terrified of slipping out," Rachel commented on her picture. "How come you still look pretty? It's not fair."

They rode all the roller coasters and the thrill rides, except the kiddie ones. At one point, they had to line up for almost two hours for the second round of Mantis, but even the waiting was fun. The park played the chicken dance song and quite a few people were doing the chicken dance. Rachel danced along and Quinn was trying to control her giggling.

"Come on, you have to do it too."

"No," Quinn was shyly trying to hide her face.

"Come on," Rachel whined.

She looked around just out of habit, and finally did the chicken dance too.

They did the water rides in the afternoon when it was quite hot. Rachel was unsatisfied that she wasn't fully wet when they rode the Snake River Falls, so when they walked on the bridge, she pulled Quinn's hand to stop her.

"Let's watch the other rides."

When the next ride came along, they saw the water coming and they screamed. It made a big splash and they were completely soaked afterwards. Rachel was giggling madly and Quinn tried to give her the evil glare but failed terribly.

"Let's wait for one more ride."

Another ride came along and they got splashed again. It was so much fun but after a few more splashes, Quinn felt that they have had enough. So she pulled Rachel away because she didn't seem like she was going to budge.

Throughout the day, they had been grabbing each other's hands to pull the other to another direction, or to something else that had caught their eyes, and after a while, the action seemed familiar.

They took a bit of rest from the rides and went to the games section. Rachel wanted to win one of the soft toys, so she played the game where she had to throw a ring and get it to land around the block but she didn't manage to do it. So Quinn decided to play the game too. Quinn was either lucky or she had a good throwing technique, she managed to get it in one throw. Rachel was so happy to see that Quinn won a small soft toy, but Quinn said that she wanted to continue. So she kept on playing until she won the biggest soft toy that they have. She asked Rachel to choose and Rachel chose a gorilla. When the games person gave Quinn the soft toy, she gave it to Rachel.

"Here you go."

"But you won it."

"I don't really want a big soft toy. I just like winning," Quinn tried to act cocky.

Rachel laughed it off, "Okay, thank you then. What should I name him?"

"Charlie."

"Charlie? I like it."

They had to leave the park around 9 p.m. in order to reach Rachel's house before her curfew. Rachel was so tired that she instantly fell asleep. She was hugging Charlie the whole time. She did offer to drive if Quinn felt tired, but Quinn said that she was okay to drive still.

Rachel woke up when they entered Lima and she felt sad that the day was over. She looked at Quinn who looked really tired too.

"How are you doing?"

"Oh, you're awake. I'm fine. It's just a few more minutes, but I'm not sure if we can make it before your curfew."

Rachel looked at the time and it was five minutes to 11 p.m. She hoped her dads weren't paying attention to the time. Quinn parked her car at Rachel's driveway at exactly 11:05 p.m.

"I'm sorry. I hope you won't get into trouble."

"It should be fine. Hey, thank you for today. I think this day will be in the top 10 best days of my life."

Quinn laughed, "Yeah, I think it's ranked pretty high for me too."

Rachel looked at Quinn for a while and pressed her lips. She felt like saying something but she wasn't sure what, or maybe she's waiting for Quinn to say something. But after a while, it didn't seem like Quinn was going to make any move.

"Well, okay. Good night then," Rachel said.

"Good night."

Rachel got out of the car and closed the door. She clutched Charlie tightly while making her way to the front door. She felt disappointed again with how the day ended when she had been on a high the whole day.

Quinn looked at Rachel sadly as she walked away. Then she noticed that Rachel didn't have her bag with her. She turned to the backseat and saw her bag was still in the car. Quinn grabbed the bag and got out of the car.

"Rachel!"

Rachel turned around and saw Quinn was walking towards her with her bag. She was already standing on the porch by then.

"You left your bag."

"Yeah, it slipped my mind."

Quinn passed her the bag and she slung it over her shoulder.

"Thank you," and without even thinking, she hugged Quinn. Quinn was stunned but after a few seconds, she hugged Rachel back. Rachel had almost retracted the hug the moment she realized that she was hugging Quinn, but when Quinn hugged her back, they both relaxed to the hug. She felt Quinn hugged her tighter for a second before releasing the hug. So Rachel let go of her too. They were parting and Rachel was smiling shyly, and then Quinn completely surprised her. Quinn had pulled her back and before she knew it, she felt Quinn's lips on hers. She kissed back a few seconds later. At first the kiss was tentative, almost like teasing each other's lips. Then Quinn kissed her more boldly and she put her arms around Quinn. Charlie, which she was holding with her left hand, was dropped to the floor so that she could completely wrapped her arms around Quinn's shoulder and neck.

Somebody moaned, Rachel wasn't sure whether it was her or Quinn, or maybe them both, and that's when the kiss stopped. Quinn released her hold and Rachel did the same. She was glad that the porch light wasn't turned on because she was sure her face was beet red.

She pursed her lips, "Erm … I … better …"

"Yeah, it's passed your curfew," Quinn smiled and bit her lower lip.

"Yeah," Rachel was sure that Quinn was going to tease her to death. "Okay, good night, bye." Rachel opened the door.

"Rachel."

"Hmm?" She turned around to face Quinn.

"You left Charlie," Quinn looked hurt.

"Sorry." She took Charlie. "Okay, good night."

"Good night."

Rachel was still standing at her opened door and Quinn was still standing on the porch.

"Well, get into your car. It's late at night; I want to make sure that you're safe in your car."

Quinn rolled her eyes and got into her car. Rachel waved her off and she drove away. After Rachel closed the door, she almost squealed, but she could hear there were sounds coming from the TV room. She walked in and saw that her dads were watching a movie.

"Oh hi Honey, how was your trip?"

"It was the best day of my life!" Leroy and Hiram looked at each other knowingly. "I'm going to bed. I love you dad," she kissed Hiram on the cheek, "I love you daddy," and she kissed Leroy on the cheek. "Good night!" And she almost skipped to her bedroom.


	19. Part 19

**Part 19**

"Hey," Quinn walked into the bathroom to a waiting Rachel.

"Hi." Rachel smiled sweetly.

Quinn leaned on the bathroom's door and Rachel leaned against the sink. They didn't say anything for the next few minutes, each was challenging the other to make the first move with their eyes. Quinn finally relented, "So how's your weekend?"

"It's not bad."

"Not bad?"

"Could have been better," Rachel said jokingly.

"Well then, you have too high of an expectation."

Before Rachel could say the next word, she received a text message. After reading it, she said, "Well, this has been fun but my dad's early today. So I have to go."

She walked to the door but Quinn was still blocking it.

"Are you going to move?"

"It depends."

"Depends on what?"

"On … can I call you some time?"

Rachel shrugged her shoulders, "Sure. So can I leave now?"

"But I don't have your number."

"I thought you like to eavesdrop, so you would have my number by now," she said sarcastically, but Quinn just glared at her. Rachel laughed, "Okay," she took out her pen, "give me your hand."

"You can't write it there. I have Cheerios practice after this."

"Okay, where can I write it then?" Without realizing it, Rachel looked all over Quinn's body to find a spot where she can write.

"Erm … are you done looking at my body?" Quinn teased and only then Rachel realized her action and she tried to hide her blushed face. "Why don't you just text me your number?"

"Then I would be the one who text you first?"

"Does that even matter?"

"Yes."

"Urgh, fine. Why don't you tell me your number? I have very good memory."

Rachel leaned in closer and whispered her phone number slowly to Quinn's ear. Quinn had stopped breathing and she couldn't pay attention to anything that Rachel was saying. Her ears had turned red. Rachel moved away and was satisfied with the reaction she was receiving.

"You know what; I don't think my memory's that good today. How about if you write your number on a paper and slip it in my locker?"

Rachel laughed amusedly, "Okay, till tomorrow. Bye."

"Bye."

"You're still blocking the door."

"What? I've moved enough for you to open the door."

Rachel rolled her eyes. She grabbed the door handle, but then Quinn's hand was grabbing hers. Rachel turned to face her and Quinn leaned in closer. Their lips met softly, the kiss was tender. Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel's waist and pulled her in closer. Rachel steadied one hand on the door, just above Quinn's shoulder, while the other hand was stroking Quinn's cheek.

Rachel's phone rang, so she pulled away and answered the phone.

"Yeah dad, I'm coming out."

Quinn covered her mouth as not to laugh loudly at Rachel's choice of words. Rachel hung up the call and glared at her.

"Sorry, but hey, you better go. I'm not coming out yet. I have to use the bathroom," Quinn said playfully. She opened the door and Rachel gave her a quick peck before leaving.

_I guess I do like kissing her_, Quinn thought. When she kissed Rachel the first time, it was more of an 'okay, let's just do this and get it over with', but when Rachel kissed her back, she felt that it seemed natural and right and she would love to continue doing it every time she could. At first she thought it would be weird to kiss Rachel. She never had to lean down to kiss anyone before, and Rachel was so small. But she loved the softness of Rachel's lips and the way Rachel's tongue moved, it made her felt hot all over. _Okay, now's not the time to be thinking of that, I have practice._

* * *

The next day, Rachel had written a note with her number and was about to put it in Quinn's locker, but then she saw Quinn was at her locker talking to Santana. Santana saw her coming over, "What do you want Hobbit?"

Rachel looked at Quinn and was hoping for Quinn to say something, but she just kept quiet. In fact she even turned around to get some books out of her locker. Quinn didn't even acknowledge her.

"What are you still standing here? Move along," Santana was annoyed with Rachel's continued presence.

Rachel gave Quinn one more look and when it's clear that Quinn wasn't going to do anything, she walked away quickly.

"You're not still playing that game with her, are you?" Santana asked Quinn.

"No."

* * *

Rachel was furious. She waited for Quinn in the bathroom. She hoped that Quinn wouldn't come in today because she didn't think she can control her anger. _Or maybe I shouldn't be in the bathroom right now because if Quinn walked in, there will be blood._ Rachel changed her mind and was about to walk out, but then Quinn had walked in.

"Rachel, I'm sorry about today."

Then she felt her rage again.

"No, you don't have a say on this. I've told you before that you need to prove yourself. You think you could take me to all these fancy places and did all those sweet things and charmed your way in so that I would forget just who you are? I do want to believe that you have changed. Even when you accused me at prom, saying that it was _my_ fault that you lose, I gave you another chance. But after what you did today, it just proves that you are still the same person that wanted to hurt me. I don't expect you to come out and profess your love to me to the whole school, but I do expect you to respect me, to treat me as an equal, not just some girl that you meet in the bathroom like some cheap affair. If you can't show me that, then you don't even deserve to be my friend."

Rachel wanted to storm out from the bathroom but Quinn blocked the door.

"Rachel, please. I'm really sorry. I know I shouldn't have done that, but it was instinctual. If I had talked to you just now in front of Santana, she would pick it up instantly. She can be very perceptive, and I wasn't ready for her, of all people, to find out. Who knows what she could do with that kind of information?"

"Then why are you still friends with her if you're afraid that she's going to do something like that to you?"

"I don't know," Quinn was really lost for words. "Some people you just stay friends just because. I don't know how else to explain it."

"Quinn, I don't care." Rachel said those words with contempt. Quinn felt like her heart had been stabbed. "You better move."

Rachel was looking at her angrily. Quinn didn't want her to leave because if she did, Rachel might be walking out of her life. But Rachel wasn't even looking at her anymore, she was staring straight ahead. Quinn felt so deflated; she had no choice but to move. She opened the door, and she could feel her heart breaking the moment Rachel walked out.


	20. Part 20

**Part 20**

Quinn was having lunch with Mercedes at the cafeteria, but she was constantly looking over a few tables behind Mercedes where Rachel, Finn and Kurt were sitting together. Rachel was laughing at something that Finn said. She wished that she could be the one who made Rachel laughed. She wished that she could act freely with Rachel at McKinley, at Lima even, but she couldn't. She felt frustrated with the situation that she was in and took out her frustration at her mashed potatoes. Mercedes had noticed that she was looking over at the other table.

"I thought you're over Finn."

"What?" Quinn was surprised with the statement.

"I saw that you've been looking at that table. I honestly don't understand what's going on with you and Rachel."

"Huh?" Quinn felt panic rising and she thought of ways to deflect the topic.

"Why are you two fighting over Finn? He's nice guy alright, but he can be a bit of a douche at times. You know who's a nice guy? Sam. I like the two of you together." Quinn heaved out a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, Sam's a nice guy … for you." She smiled cheekily at Mercedes, "I saw you two at the prom. I think you two look cute together."

Mercedes smiled shyly, "I don't know. We'll see. What about you and Finn? Clearly it's been bothering you. If I'm being honest, I don't want you to go back to Finn. But if it's him that you want, then I'll support you."

Quinn thought about it, "So you'll support whoever I want to be with?"

"Yes."

"Even when it's someone that you might not agree with?"

"Yes. I'm your friend Quinn and I'll always be there for you."

"What if it's not acceptable by a lot of people, like the whole school, for example?"

Mercedes thought, why would the whole school have a problem of Quinn and Finn being together? Quinn might have her reason, so she played along.

"Even if the whole world has a problem with it, you'll always have me. In fact, it's not just me; you have the whole Glee Club. We're a family now. I know we fight constantly, but we always make it up in the end and that makes our bond stronger. You know you can count on all of us and none of us are going to judge you."

Quinn still looked unsure.

"I see you look conflicted. I know it's kind of silly, but I do think singing does help. Remember last time when I had that body image issue and I sang 'Beautiful'?" Quinn nodded. "It gave me a boost, it made me feel powerful and in control. I think it can help you too. Think about it, you have to look for a song that fits your current emotion, that itself can help you figure out what you actually feel. You can decide later whether you want to perform it, but I have to say, singing it out loud can give you clarity. We have Glee Club practice tomorrow. I'm sure Mr Schue wouldn't mind a performance before we start our rehearsal."

Mercedes squeezed Quinn's hand to show her support and Quinn squeezed it back. She smiled her understanding of what she needed to do. Then she saw Rachel stood up to leave her table. Rachel noticed Quinn was looking at her, but Quinn couldn't read her face. It was a mixture of anger and disappointment. Mercedes noticed Quinn's face dropped in a fraction of a second. She turned around to look at the table but Rachel was already moving away, instead she saw Finn looking at Quinn.

Mercedes sighed, "You know I'll say the same thing to Rachel too. I think you two can find somebody better."

Quinn wanted to laugh at the irony of the statement.

* * *

Quinn decided to take Mercedes' advice. She had thought about it long and hard. In fact that was the only thing she thought of the rest of the day. She lost focus in Cheerios practice that the pyramid almost toppled and Sue gave her a very long lecture, which she didn't pay attention to anyway because her mind was still on the same subject.

She planned everything that night. So the next day, she went to the choir room earlier than others to talk to Mr Schue. He was more than happy for her to sing. She had printed the music sheets and gave it to Brad the Piano Man. She then took a seat on the front row and read a book while waiting for the others to arrive.

Mercedes came around and sat next to her. Rachel walked in later and glanced at Quinn, and then she took a seat behind her. Kurt sat to Rachel's right and Finn sat to her left. Once all the Glee Club members were there, Mr Schue made the announcement.

"Good afternoon everyone. Before we start the rehearsal, Quinn would like to sing a song for us today. Well Quinn, the floor is yours."

Mercedes patted her hand and Quinn smiled softly at her. She nervously walked to Brad and stood behind the piano.

"Thank you Mr Schue."

She nodded to Brad and he started playing the first few notes. Quinn kept herself steady by holding on to the piano. She didn't dare to look at anyone yet. It was her cue and she started singing.

"Something in your eyes, makes me wanna lose myself  
Makes me wanna lose myself, in your arms"

She walked slowly around the piano, but she was still looking down.

"There's something in your voice, makes my heart beat fast"

Quinn put her hand on her heart and closed her eyes.

"Hope this feeling lasts, the rest of my life  
If you knew how lonely my life has been  
And how long I've been so alone  
And if you knew how I wanted someone to come along  
And change my life the way you've done"

She was standing in front of the piano now and singing to all of them, but still to no one in particular.

"It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from  
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong"

Suddenly she felt nervous again, so she walked back to the piano to steady herself and focused her gaze on the piano.

"A window breaks, down a long, dark street  
And a siren wails in the night"

She looked back at everyone and somehow her eyes met Santana's, who was looking at her curiously. In that moment, Santana had somehow understood her. Santana snickered, shook her head disbelievingly and almost smiled her approval.

"But I'm alright, 'cause I have you here with me  
And I can almost see, through the dark there is light"

She braved herself to sing the next line and looked at Rachel finally.

"If you knew how much this moment means to me  
And how long I've waited for your touch"

She smiled at Rachel and looked at her intently.

"And if you knew how happy you are making me  
I never thought that I'd love anyone so much"

She moved away from the piano to stand in the middle of the choir room, all the while never breaking eye contact with Rachel.

"It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from"

Everyone was looking back and forth between Quinn and the direction that she was singing but they all looked confused. They thought that she was singing it to Finn, but then they also thought that she could be looking at Rachel.

"It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong  
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong."

The last notes on the piano were played and everyone clapped their hands.

"Wow Quinn! That was simply beautiful. What made you sing such a beautiful love song?" asked Mr Schue.

"Erm … Mr Schue, I have an announcement to make," she looked at the rest of the class and spoke nervously. "All of you are like my second family, the family that will accept me with all my flaws and help me to grow. I hope that I'll always have your support and that you'll be able to accept who I am." She looked at Mercedes who was giving her the thumbs up. "I want to share this with all of you and I hope that this will stay in this room and it's just going to be between all of us. I hope that you can support what I'm going through."

"Quinn, we're here for you. You can tell us anything," Tina said.

"Thank you," Quinn smiled timidly and cleared her throat. "I just want to say …" She took a deep breath. The room was so quiet and everyone was kind of leaning forward to hear what she was about to say next. "I … I think … no, I'm sure, that … I'm in love."

A collective 'oh' could be heard. Some were looking at Finn and Finn looked struck.

"With who Quinn?" asked Tina.

"It's Finn, who else," Kurt was rolling his eyes.

"But I thought Rachel's with Finn," Tina was clearly out of the loop.

There were lots of murmuring in the room, the names 'Finn', 'Puck' and 'Sam' could be heard among them. Quinn felt that everything was out of control and she looked at Rachel who was also confused at the whole situation.

"Oh My God! Are you all blind? It's Rachel," Santana suddenly said out loud.

Everybody stopped talking and looked between Quinn and Rachel. Their faces of disbelieve but somehow trying to make sense of it all.

"Quinn?" Mercedes asked.

"Rachel?" Finn asked.

Quinn looked around, settled her eyes on Rachel, and she felt the clarity. "Yes, I'm in love with Rachel," and smiled confidently. Rachel returned her smile.

Almost everybody was shocked, except for Santana who was smiling smugly and Brittany who was clapping her hands happily.

"Rachel, how about you?" Finn asked.

"I think this is between me and Quinn," Rachel said while still smiling at Quinn.

"Okay," Mr Schue cut the tension that was building in the room, "Quinn, go take your seat. Congratulations Quinn and Rachel. I'm happy for the both of you, but now we need to get back to rehearsal. Nationals is next weekend. Let's focus on that right now."

They practiced the choreography of the group number. After the practice session, Mr Schue dismissed the Glee Club and almost everybody cleared up the room right away, except for Finn who looked like he wanted to talk to Rachel or Quinn who were still hanging around, but Sam pulled him away.

"Let it go man, we both have no chance." Finn looked somber and he let Sam pulled him away.

Quinn was still sitting in her seat on the front row. Once Finn and Sam were gone, Rachel came down to sit next to her.

"When I said I don't expect you to profess to the whole school, I don't expect you to do it in front of Glee Club either." Quinn laughed. "It could have gone wrong. I might not want you to make this announcement."

Quinn turned to face Rachel, "I'm sorry Rachel. Oh God! I screw this up again, didn't I?"

"I said I might, but … in this case," Rachel smiled, "I don't mind. Thank you."

"So you're not angry at me for telling everyone?"

"It's not an issue for me, but how about you? How are you doing?" Rachel looked at her with concern.

"Nervous, worried. Like 'what the hell did I just do?'"

Rachel rubbed her back. "It'll be okay. You see how everyone is, they're not freaked out. Well maybe some are still confused but they look accepting. I guess we'll only know as the days go by."

Quinn nodded.

"You really pick the right time to tell everyone, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we're going to New York next week. Now everyone knows, even Mr Schue. And we're going to a place far, far away from Lima, to the city where we can … be ourselves."

"Yeah," Quinn smiled slowly as the realization hit her. "Hey, can I drive you home? That is if your dad's not here yet to pick you up."

"No, he hasn't texted. Let me call him."

Rachel called her dad and he was still doing some groceries, so he was okay with Quinn driving her home.

"He said okay."

_**Author's Notes:** The song is "Feels Like Home", the Chantal Kreviazuk version._


	21. Part 21

**Part 21**

The drive back to Rachel's house was pretty quiet. When they almost arrived, Rachel asked, "Hey, do you want to come inside? I think we should talk."

Quinn just nodded but somehow dreading the talk. She didn't know what to expect and Rachel's tone sounded serious. She parked the car by the roadside and followed Rachel inside her house and straight to her room. Her dad was still out groceries shopping and the other dad was still at work.

The first thing she saw when she walked into Rachel's room was Charlie the Gorilla.

"Hey! How's he doing?" She went over and picked him up.

"I think he quite enjoy the company of the little ones," Rachel was referring to the other soft toys in her room. "He's a bit bossy though, being the biggest of them all."

Quinn laughed at the story that Rachel just made up. Rachel took a seat on the bed and motioned for Quinn to take a seat too, so she put Charlie down and sat next to Rachel. Rachel took a deep breath and turned to face her, "So …"

Quinn wondered what she was supposed to do. Was she supposed to start this 'talk'? She wasn't even sure what Rachel wanted to talk about, so the only thing that came out was, "So …"

Rachel licked her lips, she was also unsure about this talk, then she giggled nervously, "Honestly I don't know how to start this. I – I think that we – umm … we should talk about whatever this is that's going on between us. I guess we've gone out on dates and stuff, but I think we have a lot of things to clear up."

Quinn didn't know what to say, so she just nodded her head and waited for Rachel to continue.

Rachel nervously picked up the lint on her bed sheet but also glancing at Quinn once in a while. "This whole thing started from a mess," Quinn looked away, "and I know you've been trying to make amends." Rachel put her fingers under Quinn's chin, "What you did today, that was really brave. Having said that, I haven't forgiven you completely," Quinn frowned, "but at least you're moving in the right direction." She released Quinn's chin and looked down. "It's just that what you did hurt me deeply. I may be able to forgive you completely one day, but that will always be at the back of my mind. I just don't want it to be something that I'll bring up every time we have a fight." Rachel stood up, "We have lots of issues that we have to wade through. I have my trust issue with you and you have this fear issue about us. I don't know. Do you really think we can work this out?"

Quinn had been listening carefully to everything that Rachel said. She had been wondering the same thing too and she didn't have an answer to that.

"Do I think we can work this out? I don't know. I hope so. I want us to be able to work it out. But you sound like you've thrown in the towel before we even start."

"Quinn, so far we've been fighting a lot. Aren't you frustrated with this?"

Quinn stood up too and raised her voice, "Rachel, if I don't want this, I wouldn't be putting my heart on the line in front of the whole Glee Club! And Mr Schue too! Sure it's frustrating, but I'm willing to go through all this to …" She looked at Rachel sadly, "to be with you. But it feels like you're trying to push me to make a getaway first."

"No, that's not my intention. I just want you to be sure, that's all. Because I don't want to go through the same cycle, where one day you want to be with me and the next day you'll be back to ignoring me."

Quinn sighed, "What do you want Rachel? You might as well just tell me because I don't have a clue what you want me to do."

Rachel sat back on the bed and ran her hands through her hair, "I don't know."

Quinn crossed her arms, "Well, if you don't know, then I have no fucking clue."

"Don't use that tone on me," Rachel glared at her.

After a few minutes of staring contest, Quinn looked away, "Do you want me to leave?"

"No," Rachel quickly said.

Quinn shook her head and sat next to Rachel again. "Rachel," she said softly, "I meant everything I said in that song. I know it might seem like a panic reaction after what happened a few days ago, but it's not. It just helps pushed my feelings forward. Come on, you should know by now that when it comes to you, it's hard for me to be rational." Quinn laughed nervously and Rachel smiled softly. "You don't trust me, I understand that, and it is hard to be in a relationship without trust."

"I guess we have to base it on something else then, and trust will come along."

"I hope so," Quinn was hopeful, "What should we base it on then?"

Rachel thought about it, "Comfort." She looked deeply into Quinn's eyes, "I feel very comfortable with you."

"Me too," Quinn smiled, "so is this us agreeing that we're giving this a shot?" After all the serious talk, Quinn was confused with the outcome.

Rachel took hold of Quinn's right hand and interlinked their fingers. "I think this fits nicely." She squeezed Quinn's hand lightly and Quinn squeezed it back, "although your fingernails are too long." Quinn's face turned red. Rachel giggled madly at Quinn's reaction. Quinn tried to pull her hand away but Rachel held on tighter. "Sorry, I'm just joking. The conversation had been so tense, thought you would appreciate the joke." Quinn's face was still red, so Rachel shoulder bumped her, "Oh cheer up," finally Quinn gave out a short chuckle.

"Well, I'm glad that my embarrassment cheers you up."

"Relax, besides, for your information, we will not be partaking on any of those … activities. I will only consider such things after I win my first Tony or when I turn 25, whichever comes first."

"No worries, I have no plan for that too," Quinn was quick to agree.

"Good, we both agree then."

"Yes." Quinn nodded her head enthusiastically. "I better go home now. I'm supposed to help my mom with dinner."

Rachel nodded her head too.

"So … I need my hand back."

"Oh, sorry," Rachel released her grip on Quinn's hand.

Quinn stood up and so did Rachel, which somehow made them only inches apart. Quinn tucked some stray hair behind Rachel's ear and leaned down to kiss her. When their lips touched, Rachel instantly wrapped her arms around Quinn's waist. One of her hands moved upward towards Quinn's neck and the other hand moved towards the small of Quinn's back. They found standing to be a problem, so Quinn lay Rachel down gently on her bed and settled on top of her, all the while never breaking the kiss. Rachel only allowed that for a few minutes before turning them around so that she was now on top.

Before things got out of control, Hiram had knocked on Rachel's door.

"Rachel! I hope you two are doing your homework in there!"

They quickly released their hold on each other.

"Yeah dad! We're almost done!"

"Good. I want you to help me with the groceries."

"Okay, I'll be down in a minute."

Once they were sure that Hiram was nowhere near the door, they both broke down with laughter.

"Thank God I lock the door."

"Hmm … yeah. That could have been … disastrous."

"Sorry, I don't know what has gotten into me. It shouldn't have gone that far."

"It's not all your fault. I pretty much straddle you first."

They laughed again.

"So much for waiting eh?" Quinn said playfully.

Rachel blushed, "But seriously Quinn, I don't want to jump into this, regardless of what just happened. We'll see how things go, okay?"

"Okay."

They walked hand in hand to the door. "I really do like kissing you though, and that's where the problem lies," Rachel teased.


	22. Part 22

**Part 22**

Quinn walked down the school hallway. She half expected to get slushied, so she was prepared by holding a plastic folder in front of her. But so far the reaction she got was pretty normal, as in they still parted ways for her. Even though she hoped that Mercedes was right, that the Glee Club was family, she was still worried that one of them had a big mouth and mentioned it to one of their jock buddies, for example. So far, so good though, so she relaxed a bit.

She saw Rachel taking out some books from her locker. Normally she would walk the longer way to get to her locker in order not to bump into Rachel. That was to avoid the confusion and awkwardness, but now she needed to prove to Rachel that she had changed. So she focused on Rachel and ignored other people around them. At this moment, she didn't care if anyone was looking at them, or she tried not to care, because if she started paying attention to her surrounding, she would certainly run the other way.

Rachel noticed someone was standing behind her and she turned around. She was surprised to see Quinn standing there. She waited for Quinn to say something, although at that moment it looked like Quinn was about to have a panic attack.

"Hi," Quinn finally said something.

Rachel smiled softly, "Hi."

Quinn fidgeted, "So … I'll see you later?"

Rachel nodded lightly.

"Okay, bye," and Quinn walked away.

Rachel knew that it must be hard for her but at least Quinn was trying. They had that 'talk' yesterday and it ended well enough, with them almost having a heavy make out session afterwards. It was a good thing that her dad had interrupted because who knew how far it could have gone. None of her make out sessions with Finn had escalated that fast. It was a good thing that Quinn already had a chat with her dads, so they didn't have to go through the awkward phase of meeting the parents for the first time. It was still uncomfortable though because when they came down to the kitchen to meet her dad, he gave them a sly smile like he knew what had happened.

She turned back to her locker and saw Finn standing there and looking at her anxiously. "Hey."

"Hi Finn, how are you?"

"I'm fine. What about you?"

"I'm good."

She knew what Finn actually wanted to talk about, but she let Finn took his time. She went back to look for her books.

"So what actually is going on between you and Quinn?"

"Finn!" Rachel was looking around her to make sure that no one was listening. She might not have a problem with it, but she knew that Quinn wouldn't like it. "Can you please keep it down?" Finn tightened his lips. "I've said yesterday, that it is between us."

"At least please let me know, are you two together? I mean, you know, having my ex-girlfriend being with my … other ex-girlfriend, that's kind of –"

"Finn, this has nothing to do with you," he looked dumbstruck. "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be snappy, but … to answer your question then yes. I guess we're together. I don't know. We're still trying to figure this out."

"Rachel, you don't know her. There's something up her sleeve. I know people can be easily distracted with her beauty, but she's ... manipulative. She's playing games with you, and she's going to hurt you."

_She already did_, Rachel thought. "Finn, I know you're trying to protect me, and I appreciate that. But for now, can you at least be a friend and support me? Not just me … us. This is not easy for both of us, and I understand that it must not be easy for you too, but please?"

Finn looked at Rachel closely and he felt the pleading in Rachel's tone. "Okay. I'm here for you."

"Thank you," Rachel felt relieved that she didn't have to lose Finn. The bell rang to mark the beginning of the first period.

"Hey, are we still doing lunch or are you having lunch with her now?"

"I don't think we're there yet. So yes, I'll see you during lunch."

* * *

Sam saw Quinn walking through the hallway and he caught up with her.

"Hey Quinn!"

"Hey," Quinn tried to act as normal as possible, but she knew what was coming.

"So, I just want you to know that I'm cool with it."

"Okay," Quinn didn't like where this was going.

"What I mean is –"

"I know what you mean," she cut him off. It irritated her to have this conversation in the hallway. "Can we not talk about this? Look, I don't need your permission or anything."

Sam was taken aback, "That's not what I meant. I want to say that I'm here if you need a friend."

Quinn's face soften, "Oh, sorry. Yeah, thank you for that."

"Well, I have to thank you too for getting Mercedes to ask me out to the prom," Sam let out that boyish smile.

"So I guess things have been going great?"

"Yeah, we're going out tomorrow. Hey, maybe we can do a double date or something."

"Umm … I don't think so."

"Oh yeah, I guess you and Ra-" Quinn glared, "… umm … that person would prefer your alone time."

"No, I'm going to Chicago with my mom this weekend."

"Oh." The bell rang to mark the beginning of the second period.

* * *

"What do you want?" Quinn was annoyed to see Finn waiting at her locker.

"I just want you to know that you better not be playing around with her." Quinn looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping. "I care for Ra-" Quinn frowned at him, so he lowered his voice, "her and I don't want to see her get hurt."

"You've hurt her plenty of time," Quinn accused him.

"Well, maybe so, and I've apologized to her about all that, so we're cool now. The thing is about Ra-" Quinn smacked his arm, "aww," Finn rubbed the spot, "about her is that she's easily blinded by nice things, sweet gestures, and I know just how charming you can be when you want something. I really hope for her sake that this is not just one of your games."

"Look," Quinn glared at him, "I care about her and I don't want to hurt her too. I know that I've hurt her in the past but we're trying to move on from that. But it's going to be hard if all of you are coming down hard on me. So just … please, I know you don't believe me, but I'm going to give you a free pass. If I ever screw this up, you can go ahead and say that you've been right all along and tell everyone all about it."

Finn nodded, they had come to an agreement. The bell rang to mark the beginning of the third period.

* * *

Rachel, Kurt and Finn sat together during lunch. Kurt saw Quinn and Mercedes were sitting a few tables away from them.

"So, how come you two are not having lunch together?" Kurt indicated to Quinn. Rachel turned around to look at the direction he was pointing. Their eyes met, Rachel smiled but quickly turned around to face Kurt.

"It'll be too weird if we start having lunch at the cafeteria together."

"How long are you going to keep this up? In fact, let's start from the beginning. How long has this been going on? I thought you tell me everything." Kurt looked hurt. "I never saw any indication that something's going on between you two. I don't understand this. Have you two been meeting in the girls' bathroom or something?"

Rachel blushed.

"Oh," Kurt smiled mischievously. Finn looked somber and just looked down at his food. "What have you two been doing in there?" Kurt teased.

"Nothing! Get your mind out of the gutter. We just talked."

"But you can't just be meeting up in the bathroom and suddenly, bam! You're together?"

"We went out on a few dates."

"Really? Somebody would have seen you two if you're out in downtown Lima."

"We've been going out of town."

"Ooh, how very inconspicuous."

Finn had been very quiet the whole time and he just gave Rachel a sad smile.

Meanwhile, Mercedes had been hammering Quinn with questions of her own.

"Quinn, you know that you could have talked to me. I'm completely okay with it. Rachel's my friend too, and I think … umm," Mercedes wasn't sure how to word out the next sentence, "well, honestly I never thought you two are, well, into that. I mean with Rachel's obsession with Finn before this and … your own story with boys. But I guess nowadays, it's never that obvious. But I guess I never thought that she's your type. Not that I know what your type is. Do you have a type?"

Quinn had been listening to Mercedes' ramble, so when Mercedes asked her that question, she felt cornered. "No. I never thought about that. It just happens."

Their conversation was interrupted with Puck's arrival. "Did I turn you gay?"

Mercedes smacked Puck's head.

"Aww, what's that for?" Puck rubbed his head while looking at Mercedes.

"For asking such a stupid question."

"What? I'm just curious. Not that I have any problem with it," he smiled smugly at Quinn. "You know, two hot girls … making out," Puck was already daydreaming when Mercedes smacked his head again.

"Aww, cut it out!"

"Then stop saying stupid things."

"I'm just saying," he glowered at Mercedes and then turned to Quinn, "that I fully support the two of you to be with each other." He stood up to leave, "and if you two ever want to make out in front of me," he was already moving away from the table before Mercedes could smack his head again, "that's cool with me." He smirked before making a getaway.

Quinn shook her head, "I can't believe I had a baby with that guy."

* * *

"Hmm … I'm half expecting the Hobbit to follow you around everywhere," Santana quipped when she approached Quinn at her locker.

"Maybe you should stop calling her that."

"Ooh, finally, the girl is defending _her_ girl," Santana smirked. "Oh wait, I got it wrong. _you're_ the puppy that's following her around. Urgh, as if she didn't already have that Blob, now you too. I honestly have no idea what the two of you see in her."

"How can you when your eyes are permanently stuck on Brittany?" Quinn retorted.

Santana crossed her arms, "Whatever!" and she quickly left. The bell rang for the final period.

* * *

Quinn walked into the bathroom and was happy to see Rachel there.

"Hi, how's your day been?" Rachel asked.

"Horrible. All people want to talk about is us. I thought I told them that it's never to leave the choir room," Quinn shook her head and pondered for a bit, then she looked at Rachel. "What about you?"

"Same thing, but it's not as bad as I thought. Overall, I think they're pretty supportive."

Quinn nodded, "True. Maybe it's not that bad."

Rachel decided to change the subject, "What are you doing this weekend?"

"Oh, I've wanted to tell you, my mom and I are going to Chicago. We're driving off tonight and we're coming back on Sunday night."

"Oh."

"Yeah, my sister's getting an achievement award or something from her company. So we're attending the dinner."

"Wow, that's impressive."

"Yeah, she's the high achiever in the family."

"Higher than you?" Rachel looked skeptically.

"Well, about the same. Maybe that's why I'm so competitive. I've been in competition since I was born."

Rachel laughed, "Have fun then. So I'll see you on Monday."

"Yeah."

"Well, my dad is going to be here soon, I better be waiting outside."

"Okay. Hey, I still don't have your number. Maybe I can call you from Chicago."

"Sure. Let me text you. So what's your number?"

Quinn smiled brightly and gave Rachel her number who instantly texted her.

"Sent," Rachel indicated by waving her phone.

"Come here," Quinn motioned Rachel to come closer.

Rachel walked slowly towards her. When she was close enough, Quinn extended her right hand for Rachel to take. Rachel grabbed her hand and Quinn pulled her closer. She then wrapped her arms around Rachel's waist and Rachel put her arms around Quinn's neck.

"This is the best part of my day," Quinn almost whispered. "As long as I have you here with me, then everything is right in the world."

Rachel smiled shyly; it was still a little odd to see Quinn being sweet and romantic. She was still getting used to it but she loved every part of it. She didn't know what to say, so she pulled Quinn down to kiss her. The kiss was slow and tender. Rachel wasn't lying; she really loved kissing Quinn. Quinn's lips were soft and thick and so kissable. Quinn's face was so soft, unlike Finn and his stubble. Quinn also always have this sweet smell, she couldn't figure it out what it was, and Finn always smell like after shave and deodorant. He was pleasant smelling but it wasn't sweet and intoxicating.

Rachel pulled away, "Well, that's for the whole weekend." She smiled teasingly, "Bye."

She left before Quinn could say anything. Quinn was still hazy after that kiss. When she noticed that Rachel had left, she quickly opened the door and called on Rachel.

"Rachel!" Then she realized what she just did and she looked around, but the hallway was already empty except for Rachel.

Rachel looked at her amusedly and mouthed 'What?'

Quinn only managed to wave bye. Rachel smiled and waved back. Then she turned around and made her way out of the building. Quinn watched her until she was out of sight.


	23. Part 23

**_Author's Notes:_**_ Just some fluff because I need cheering up after reading a sad fic and reading about Ashley Greene's dead dog :-(_

**Part 23**

A note fell out of Rachel's locker. She smiled while reading it:

'Can you meet me during lunch? I'll wait in my car. It's parked behind the gym.'

The last time she talked to Quinn was on Sunday afternoon and the conversation had been very brief. In fact the two phone conversations they had while Quinn was in Chicago probably last about 5 minutes, each. So she was pretty excited to see Quinn. She constantly reminded herself not to be too eager and lower her defense, that she shouldn't put too much expectation and that she needed to be wary of Quinn. The problem was that, Finn was right; Quinn's beauty and charm had blinded her at times. It was easier to think clearly when Quinn wasn't around, so being in a car with Quinn might not be a good idea, but at the moment, she missed Quinn too much to care.

The day seemed that much longer now that she was anticipating the lunch period. Finn was disappointed when she told him that she couldn't have lunch with him. He didn't need to ask why; he knew that this day would come.

The bell rang to mark the beginning of the lunch period. Rachel quickly went to her locker to put her books and took out her lunch. Then she made her way to the parking lot behind the gym and saw Quinn's car. She approached the car and saw that Quinn was already waiting inside, so she got in.

"Hi," Quinn smiled at her.

"Hi," for some reason, Rachel felt shy.

Quinn started the car.

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere more private, I know a place."

Quinn drove not that far off. It was a spot behind the old swimming pool. She turned off the car engine.

"I used to come here whenever I need to get away from people," Quinn told her and Rachel just nodded. "So maybe we can have lunch here. I see you already brought your lunch."

"The café's food is not vegan friendly. You should try some of this; my dad's a really good cook. Do you have your lunch too?"

"Yeah, I have a sandwich."

They started eating their lunch. Rachel asked Quinn about her trip to Chicago, so Quinn was telling her all about it. Then Rachel offered Quinn to try some of the pasta, but instead of passing Quinn the pasta bowl, Rachel was trying to feed it to her. Quinn hesitated for a moment, but she ate it in the end. For some reason, feeding Quinn kind of turned Rachel on, maybe it was the way that Quinn's tongue had made an appearance. Rachel was sure that no one else eats pasta that sexy. She felt a bit hot, so she avoided Quinn's eyes afterwards and ate her lunch quietly.

When they were done with lunch, they still have about fifteen minutes left before lunch period ends.

"So what did you do this weekend? I know we didn't get to talk that much. I was always surrounded by mom or my sister."

"It's okay. I just spent some time with Finn," Quinn frowned, "practicing our song for Nationals."

"How's that going?"

"I think it went well. It's funny though, you know, because the song is called 'Pretending'. Have you listened to the lyrics? It felt like something that we should be singing together," Rachel hinted.

"It's not too late."

Rachel laughed, "It might be too controversial for a show choir competition, you know, two female leads singing a love song … together, to each other."

Quinn shrugged and looked away. Rachel put her hand on Quinn's knee.

Rachel changed the topic to something less distressing, "Hey, let's talk about New York. It's this weekend. Isn't it exciting?"

"Yeah," Quinn wasn't really paying attention anymore. She was looking at Rachel's hand on her knee. She grabbed it and lifted it to her mouth. Then she kissed each of Rachel's fingers. Rachel's jaw dropped the moment Quinn kissed her pinky finger. She felt the heat rising again. At the moment Quinn was kissing each of her fingertips softly, and when she reached Rachel's thumb, Quinn lightly sucked on it as if it was a lollypop. Rachel swallowed hard and when she looked at Quinn, she realized that Quinn was looking at her. Quinn released her thumb and leaned forward and Rachel met her halfway. This time the kiss was rough; there was a certain longing and need to it. They both tried to get closer which ended with one of them knocking the car gear from parking to neutral, which caused the car to move slowly forward because the road was a bit slanted. It took a few minutes before Quinn noticed that they were moving and she quickly pulled the hand brake. They both laughed at their situation and moved back to their seats.

"Maybe meeting in your car for lunch is not a good idea," Rachel said.

"Really?" Quinn looked sad at that.

"No! I mean, I love this, but we need to have some control over our hormones."

"So what do you suggest?"

"I don't know. This car is at least better than bathroom. But at least the bathroom has more space, we can keep some distance. But I like being in this car, feels more intimate."

Quinn raised her eyebrow. Rachel blushed when she realized what she had just said.

"I mean … it's more private. Ah, you know what I mean."

Quinn smiled and nodded. "Okay, how about every time things get too far, I'll stop us to pray."

"What?"

"Well, that works with the boys. But then again," her voice became huskier, "I never wanted to kiss them as much as I want to kiss you now."

She leaned forward again to kiss Rachel, and this time the kiss was gentle. They heard the distant sound of the school bell and instantly pulled apart.

"Oh no! I'm going to be late," Rachel looked worried.

Quinn quickly drove them back to school.

* * *

No one else had bothered Rachel and Quinn about what was going on between them, which was a big relief to both of them. Even during Glee Club practice, everyone acted the way they normally act. But then Rachel and Quinn had not acted any different either. Maybe they were so used to this act; to keep their distance when they were in public setting, especially when they were still in McKinley and Lima. To casual observers, it looked like nothing had changed between them, but if anyone paid any attention, there were lots of quick glances and small smiles being exchanged between them.


	24. Part 24

**Part 24**

Even though Rachel insisted that they shouldn't be meeting up in the car anymore, it was hard to resist Quinn when they hardly had any alone time together because for the whole week they had been busy practicing for Nationals. So at the moment, there they were, in Quinn's car, parked behind the old swimming pool. But this time they had somehow progressed to the backseat. Quinn was on top of Rachel. They were kissing passionately and hands were roaming everywhere. Quinn's hair was no longer in a ponytail; instead it was all messed up and tangled around Rachel's fingers. Quinn was tracing kisses along Rachel's chin to her neck and to her ear, and then she slowly sucked on Rachel's earlobe. Rachel was quite enjoying it; her left hand was still playing with Quinn's hair while her right hand was snaking around Quinn's back and rested on her backside. Quinn instantly stopped to look at her, her breathing was erratic. Rachel retracted her hands.

"Sorry, too much, I know," Rachel said timidly.

Quinn stared at her and tried to control her breathing, "No, it's okay."

Then she grabbed Rachel's hands and put it back to where it was and continued kissing her. Rachel had then lifted her left leg to wrap it around Quinn. Quinn ran her right hand all the way from Rachel's knee to her thigh, and then she slowly inched underneath Rachel's skirt. That brought Rachel back to Earth. She quickly pushed Quinn away which caused Quinn to bump her head on the car roof.

"Aww!" Quinn rubbed the spot.

Rachel sat up. "I'm so sorry," Rachel looked at her guiltily and tried to rub the spot too.

"It's okay, I know, _that_ is too much."

Quinn was still straddling Rachel, so she moved so that they both could take a seat.

"I feel like all we do now is making out," Rachel sighed.

"I know. When did we become teenage boys?" They both laughed. "It's just that, it's hard to control myself being this close to you."

Rachel smiled at Quinn's confession. "So we both want to spend time together, but every time we do, we always ended up with a heavy make out session, so yeah, this is hard."

Quinn nodded, "But hey, at least when we're in New York, we'll always be surrounded with the others, so it should be okay."

"I was actually thinking that maybe we can get our own room so that we don't have to share," Rachel said shyly.

Quinn raised her eyebrow, even she had never thought of that idea.

"But of course, it was just a fleeting thought. Not that I think we should do it, I mean, getting a room, because you know –" Rachel started blabbering.

"Relax Rachel. I don't think we should either. Besides a hotel room in New York City, not sure if I can afford it," Quinn smiled teasingly.

"I think Mike and Sam think that it's not fair that all of us are in one room when they had to be separated from Tina and Mercedes."

"Well, power to us girls then."

Rachel laughed, "So are Brittany and Santana together?"

"I'm not sure. They've been going back and forth for as long as I've known them."

"I hope they'll work it out. Hopefully that will make Santana less vicious and mean."

Quinn laughed, "I think she will always have her claws out."

Rachel took a deep breath, "We better go back to school. I don't want to be late again."

* * *

They were all exempted from attending the school on Friday as they had to travel to New York City for the Nationals Show Choir competition. The school had provided a bus to take them to the airport, so all the parents were dropping their kids at McKinley High. Quinn thought that her mom would just drop her off, but instead Judy got out of the car to walk her to the bus. They were making their way to meet the rest when Hiram saw Quinn and came over to introduce himself to Judy.

"Hi Quinn!" He smiled at her, and then he turned to greet Judy, "You must be Quinn's mother. You are as beautiful as your daughter. It's nice to meet you. I'm Hiram, Rachel's dad."

Judy was surprised with the introduction, "Hi! I'm Judy, nice to meet you."

Rachel came over; she looked like she was running to meet them.

"Hey dad!"

"Ah, there you are."

"Hi Mrs Fabray. I'm Rachel, Quinn's friend."

"Hi, nice to meet you." Judy smiled but still confused with this whole exchange.

Then Leroy joined them, "Hello!"

"Daddy, this is Quinn's mother."

"Hi, it's so nice to meet you. I'm Leroy. Quinn is a lovely girl."

"Thank you. I'm Judy. I guess Quinn has been spending time with all of you."

"Oh no, we hardly see them," Hiram joked.

"Okay dads, Mr Schue's back, probably with the information you're asking for. Come on, let's go see him," Rachel pulled both of them away.

"We'll talk again later Judy," Leroy said as they were leaving.

Judy just nodded and then she turned around to look at Quinn for an explanation, "Rachel's my best friend."

"Oh, why didn't you say so? You should invite her and her dads around for dinner."

"So you're okay with her dads?"

"That must be Rachel Berry. I've heard about them, only nice things. I heard Hiram's a great interior designer. I would love for him to give our kitchen a makeover."

Quinn was relieved to hear her mother said that, "Yeah, maybe after school ends, I'll invite them for dinner."

Then Judy continued, "I think they're a great example of how gay parents can still raise a straight child." Quinn was quiet. "I heard she's dating Finn. But since you're best friends with her now, I guess you're okay with it?"

"She's no longer dating him."

"Oh."

"But what if," Quinn unsurely asked, "for example, what if she's … not straight?"

"Is she not straight?" Judy asked uncertain.

"I mean hypothetically. Will you be okay with us being friends?"

"Of course, I'm not that close minded Quinn," Judy couldn't believe that Quinn thought that of her, but then she continued; "besides it's not that you are."

It was a good time for Mr Schue to interrupt them, "Hi Quinn, Hi Mrs Fabray. I'm Will Schuester, the Glee Club teacher. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too." They shook hands.

"We're boarding the bus now, so let's get your bag in there." Mr Schue took the bag from Quinn's hand to put it in the bus.

"Thanks Mr Schue. Okay, bye Mom!" Quinn hugged her, "I'll call you later."

At the same time, Rachel was also hugging her dads goodbyes. Rachel had informed her dads that Judy didn't know anything about them. It was a good thing because right after they boarded the bus, Judy could be seen approaching the Berrys.

Rachel took a seat at the back of the bus, away from the rest, and Quinn sat next to her. They waved to their parents. Once the bus left the school, Rachel saw Quinn had finally relaxed.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, told my mom you're my best friend."

"Oh." Rachel thought for a second, "Am I?"

Quinn looked at her, "I don't know. What is the definition of best friend?"

"Someone that knows you, completely understand you, someone that you can talk to about everything and anything, someone that'll be with you through thick and thin."

Quinn pondered those words, "Are you going to be with me through thick and thin?"

"I don't know. Are you?" Rachel asked back.

"I guess only time will tell."

They both thought about it, and then Rachel broke the silence. "Sorry about my dads earlier. They're excited to meet your mom. Actually, I am too." Rachel smiled softly.

"Yeah, she's heard of your dads. She actually invited all of you to come over for dinner."

"Really? Wow, that's great."

"Don't get too excited about it."

"Why?"

"Nothing," Rachel saw that Quinn didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to push Quinn because this weekend was all about having fun and they would deal with the rest later.

The ride to the airport was full of singing. It started with Mercedes and Sam singing to the tune of 'Summer Nights' which was quickly joined by everyone. As soon as one song finished, somebody else would start the next song. Rachel was happy to see Quinn no longer sulking and happily singing with the rest. When they were close to the airport, they ended the singing session with 'Don't Stop Believing'. Rachel and Finn reenacted their steps of circling each other with their arms around each other, which caused Quinn to stop singing, but she didn't say anything. Rachel was too caught up with the singing to notice the way Quinn was looking at them. Quinn knew that Rachel's not hers, and some parts of Rachel would probably always have feelings for Finn. She wished that she didn't have to share any of it because right now her whole heart belongs to Rachel.

When they arrived at the airport, Mr Schue went to get their boarding passes, which were assigned by their last names, except for Artie who would sit next to Mr Schue. There were three seats per row and the seating arrangement made Quinn sat in between Sam and Finn. It was a nightmare. Rachel was sitting with Mike and Tina, so they wouldn't want to move. She couldn't ask either Sam or Finn to change seat with Rachel, because it would still be awkward to have one of them sitting next to her with Rachel on the other side. Puck and Lauren were already sitting next to each other, and Santana managed to make Kurt exchanged seat with Brittany so that they would be sitting together. So Quinn exchanged seat with Mercedes so that she could sit next to Sam, which meant Quinn was now sitting with Santana and Brittany. So in the end, Quinn was sitting behind Rachel. Rachel changed her seat from window to aisle seat so that they could still talk. They managed to settle all these sitting arrangement before the flight took off; the flight attendance was already annoyed that they were taking a long time to settle down. Quinn was frustrated, she already planned on holding Rachel's hand the whole flight and have Rachel leaned on her shoulder, and probably even sneak some kisses. But instead they constantly had to move apart for the flight attendance to push the trolley. Luckily the flight was only about an hour and 50 minutes. It still felt like an eternity for Quinn, especially when she had to sit through Santana and Brittany's cute kiddie talk. She wished that she could at least hold Rachel's hand, but they were still in a flight from Ohio.

Once they arrived in New York City, they straight away checked into the hotel. All the girls were in one room, which already had two double beds. Another double bed was added to fit all of them. Santana and Brittany took one bed, while Mercedes and Tina took the other bed, which left Lauren having to sleep with Rachel and Quinn. They couldn't argue with Santana, and Lauren, Mercedes and Tina wouldn't fit into one bed, so Rachel and Quinn had no choice but to sleep with Lauren.

Quinn's frustration level had almost reached the peak, even though she didn't voice it, so Rachel quickly pulled her into the bathroom.

"Hey! I know you're frustrated. I am too. But maybe it's a good thing that Lauren's in the same bed, because if not, you know …" Rachel smiled shyly.

Quinn sighed, "I know. It's just that ever since this morning, nothing seems to go right."

"We're in New York! We're going out exploring after this and we will have fun."

Quinn couldn't help but laughed at Rachel's enthusiasm, "Yeah." Then she hugged Rachel tightly. "I miss you."

Rachel laughed, "I'm right here."

Quinn laughed too, then she pulled away to look at Rachel, "I …" she didn't finish the sentence; instead she leaned down to give Rachel a tender kiss. It could have gone longer but Santana was banging on the door.

"Rachel, Quinn, quit hogging the bathroom."

Quinn pulled away looking irritated, "Maybe we should get a room somewhere."

Rachel rolled her eyes and smiled teasingly, and then she pulled Quinn out of the bathroom.


	25. Part 25

**Part 25**

They went out to explore the city. First stop was Times Square. Rachel almost bought tickets to see Cats because, for some reason, her over-excitement of being in New York City made her completely forgot that Cats was no longer showing in Broadway. Luckily Quinn was there to stop her from giving her credit card to the sleazy looking guy. Later, they went to Washington Square Park and sat around the central fountain. Brittany had been taking pictures the whole day, and unbeknownst to them, they were some of her favorite subjects, apart from Santana. There was a picture of Rachel lying next to the fountain and Quinn was looking at her lovingly. They walked all the way to Central Park, which was about an hour walk. When they were walking through Central Park, Brittany took a picture of Quinn with her arm around Rachel. That was the first time that all the Glee Club members saw them being touchy-feely with each other. Puck looked like he just won the lottery, Finn looked sullen, Mercedes and Kurt smiled happily, and Santana just looked annoyed. Brittany was excitedly taking pictures and the rest were mostly amused to see Quinn acting so gentle with Rachel while Rachel looking so smitten with Quinn. It was a bit of getting used to, but they were all accepting in the end. Quinn bought some flowers for Rachel to cheer her up because she was unhappy to see all the horse carriages, but she loved the police horses. She approached one of them and even got Quinn to also talk to the horse.

They were just hanging around at the park when Quinn told her that she had to leave.

"Hey, I have to go off somewhere."

"Where?" Rachel looked at her incredulously.

"Somewhere," Quinn got defensive.

"What's with the secretive?"

"I'm not being secretive. There's just something that I have to do."

"Go ahead," Rachel's tone was a bit venomous, "You don't owe it to me to tell me everything anyway. It's not like we're … whatever."

"Yeah," Quinn looked guilty for a bit, but she shook it off. "Sorry, but I'll see you later."

Quinn exchanged looks with Mercedes and Kurt and they quickly took over the spots next to Rachel on the bench. Rachel glared at Quinn's retreating back, but she decided to put Quinn out of her mind; she still had a lot to explore.

* * *

They were on their way back to the hotel. Rachel had a lot of fun exploring the city with the others. Finn's mood lifted when he saw Quinn left and he had been spending most of the time walking next to Rachel. But Kurt and Mercedes were always nearby.

"Hey, I was thinking that, you know, maybe we can have dinner tonight or something?"

Rachel didn't know what to say, but then she thought that she had no dinner plan anyway and Quinn had left her to do who knows what. She was about to say 'yes' when Mercedes answered for her, "Sorry Finn, she already has dinner plan tonight."

"I do?" Rachel was confused.

Mercedes nodded and pulled her away from Finn. They were already at the hotel anyway. When they walked into the room, there was a dress on the bed with a note to Rachel.

'Your ride will be waiting at the lobby at 7:30.'

Kurt had followed them into the girls' room and he was looking at Rachel's reaction the whole time.

She turned to Kurt, "Is this …?" She was speechless.

"Yep," Kurt answered.

He knew that Rachel was asking if that was the dress that she showed to Kurt the last time they went to the mall. She wanted to buy it but it was a bit pricey and she wasn't sure if her dads would be okay with it. She thought of asking them to buy it in their next mall trip. But she didn't need that anymore, the dress she had been eyeing for almost a year was right in front of her.

"Come on! We don't have much time. Mercedes will do your hair and I will do your make up. Go, take a shower!" Kurt was pushing her into the bathroom. Rachel was still confused with the whole thing.

Twenty minutes later, she got out of the shower and put on the dress. Mercedes started working on her hair and Kurt took out the make-up kit that Tina had brought. Only a few minutes left before 7:30 and Kurt was putting the finishing touch.

"I can't believe that she got you guys to do this."

"You know how Quinn can be persuasive. Besides she only asked us to keep you preoccupied, but I volunteered to do your make up," Kurt said.

"And I volunteered to do your hair," Mercedes said.

"When did she buy this dress?"

"One day after school, she approached me, asking if I have any idea of what kind of dress that you would like and …" Kurt didn't need to finish the sentence.

"I feel really bad for being angry at her. I thought she just left me to do something else without me," Rachel pouted.

"I'm sure you can find some ways to apologize," Kurt teased and made Rachel blushed.

"So are you two dating? Girlfriends?" Mercedes asked curiously.

"I guess we are dating, but we haven't declared anything yet."

"What are you waiting for? She's clearly in love with you. I didn't see it before; you two were pretty good at hiding it in school. But today, it's like I'm seeing a whole new Quinn."

"Yeah Rachel, even though Quinn didn't tell me before, I did notice little things. She's happier; I could see it in her eyes, even if she looked conflicted at times. At least now I understood why. And seeing you two today, I feel like you've brought out the best in her for everyone else to see. I think you two are good for each other," Mercedes added.

Rachel's eyes were brimming with tears. "Hey, no time for that, besides you're going to ruin your make-up. It's almost 7:30. Come on, put on your shoes."

Rachel put on her shoes and grabbed her handbag.

"Good luck!"

"Have fun!"

She quickly made her way to the lobby. She thought that Quinn would be waiting there, but instead she saw a guy holding out a sign that said 'Rachel Berry'. She approached him.

"Hi, I'm Rachel Berry."

He looked at his phone to check if the picture matched the person. Once it's confirmed, he said, "Please follow me."

He took her out to a waiting limo and opened the door for her.

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know. You're supposed to tell me. Here's a note for you."

He took out a note from his pocket and gave it to her.

'Meet me at the top of Empire State Building.'

Rachel chuckled at Quinn's reference to one of their chat sessions.

"So where are we going miss?"

"Empire State Building please."

She entered the limo and looked at the note again, and realized that Quinn had also left a ticket to get to the main deck in the envelope. Rachel felt like she was living the life of a New York socialite. Quinn was pampering her too much, she needed to remind Quinn about this, because she might get too use to it.

It was a very short drive from the hotel. The driver opened her door and she felt very anxious as she stepped out of the limo. She looked up to see the grandeur of Empire State Building. Her ticket took her straight to the main deck. She walked out of the elevator and looked around but Quinn wasn't there. There were quite a few people as it was a Friday night. She walked out into the outdoor observatory area and turned right. She walked slowly, trying to find that familiar face, and Quinn wasn't hard to spot, she was wearing a red coat after all.

She walked over to Quinn who was looking at something in the distance.

"Hi," Rachel said shyly.

Quinn turned around and Rachel's sight caught her breath.

"Hi," she said breathlessly.

Quinn was wearing a little black dress. She let her wavy hair flowed around her face, and she had just a touch of make-up, just enough to accentuate her feature. Rachel was completely enamored by Quinn's beauty. Quinn was holding a red rose and she handed it to Rachel. Rachel took hold of it and she was so overwhelmed with emotions that she grabbed Quinn's neck and pulled her down for a passionate kiss, which Quinn returned for a few seconds but she quickly pulled away because they were surrounded by people.

"Sorry, I can't help myself. You're just too perfect," Rachel gushed.

Quinn smiled shyly, "I'm not, but thank you anyway."

They tried to avoid strangers' eyes, some were confused that two beautiful girls were kissing each other, some were amused and some were smiling proudly at them. They held hand while they watched the sunset.

"It's so beautiful. Can we stay here?"

"Well, they're closing at 2. So we can stay until then. But at 2, we'll probably have fast food for dinner," Quinn joked.

"At this moment, we can have McDonald and I don't care."

"Really? Because I do have this restaurant booking at 8.30. Let me cancel then."

"What? No!"

Quinn laughed and Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Come on. You'll see more of this in a year's time."

The limo took them to East 79th Street and Lexington Avenue. Rachel got out and looked at the restaurant.

"Well, according to PETA, this is the best vegan restaurant in the city," Quinn pointed to Candle 79.

"Quinn, you have to stop pampering me. It might go to my head and I'll be too demanding later," Rachel almost whined. "Besides, how am I supposed to top this date with you?"

"I'm sure you can think of something," she whispered to Rachel's ear seductively.

Rachel was in vegan heaven. She even thought the food was as good or might be even better than her dads' cooking, but of course she won't tell them that.

Quinn had been very nervous the whole night, even though she tried not to show it. From the moment she left Rachel at the park, she was worried that something would go wrong, but so far, everything had been perfect. That dreaded feeling that she felt from the morning had ebb away. At the moment, she was having a romantic dinner with Rachel in one of the posh restaurants in New York City. She wanted to impress Rachel so much. She knew she would be in trouble once she's back in Lima. Her mother had given her a credit card for emergency use, and she had used almost $500 for tonight alone. She would make it up during summer. She would convince her mom that she would work at Dairy Queen or something to pay back for all this. But right now, she didn't want to think about all that. Rachel was excitedly talking about her last visit to New York, which happened to be when she was 12. Her dads took her to see The Lion King on Broadway. Quinn wished that they have enough time to see a Broadway show but their schedule was pretty tight.

Suddenly Rachel was panicking, "Oh My God Quinn! Bernadette Peters is here." Quinn wanted to turn around. "No don't turn around. What should I do? Oh no, she's walking this way. Quinn, what should I do?"

Quinn wanted to laugh and frown at Rachel's mild panic attack. She turned around just as Bernadette Peters was about to pass them. She stood up, "Hi Ms Bernadette. Sorry to bother you, but my …" Quinn looked at Rachel and wondered how she should introduce her, "umm, friend here really admire you. She's an aspiring Broadway actress."

Rachel stood up shakily and shook her hand, "Hi, it's an honor to shake hand with you."

"Oh darling, you're so sweet. Thank you. I hope I'll be around long enough to meet you again on the Broadway stage."

Rachel smiled broadly. After Bernadette Peters left, Quinn looked at her, "Is this how you're going to be every time you meet someone famous."

Rachel winced, "Maybe. Sorry, I must have embarrassed you."

"No, not at all, I think it's cute."

"You only said that because you like me."

Quinn chuckled, "Maybe."

After dinner, they got back into the limo for a ride around the city.

"How long do we have this limo?"

"Until 11:30."

"It's only 10:15. So where are we going next?"

"We'll drive around the city, then he'll drop us off at Central Park and we can walk back to the hotel."

"Ooh, that's perfect."

Rachel linked her arm with Quinn and scooted closer. The both enjoyed the view quietly. The view of New York City at night was really breathtaking. Then Rachel got distracted with all the buttons in the limo. She found the button to open the roof of the limo. She pulled Quinn with her and they both had half their bodies out of the car. To onlookers, it looked like two girls having a fun night out, which was true. After about 15 minutes, they felt a bit chilly. So they closed the roof and settled back down in the limo.

"You really know a way to a girl's heart," Rachel teased. "But Quinn, all of this must have cost a fortune."

"Don't worry about it. It's once in a while thing anyway. But just so you know, I might have no time for you this summer; I might have to do some slave labor," Quinn joked.

Rachel pouted and leaned her head on Quinn's shoulder. She looked at the divider between the driver and the passenger part of the limo. The divider was up.

"Can he see or hear us?"

"No."

"What's the time?"

"We have 15 minutes left." Rachel turned to look at Quinn deviously. "What's that look for?"

Rachel didn't answer; instead she straddled Quinn and kissed her roughly. Their passions ignited so easily. Quinn was wearing her coat and it felt rather hot. Rachel helped her got out the coat and Quinn got rid of Rachel's scarf. Rachel's hand lingered on the zipper of the back of Quinn's dress. She felt bold and slowly unzipped it. She didn't unzip it all the way, but enough to sneak her hand in. Quinn had also unzipped the back of Rachel's dress and sneaked her hand in while the other hand was slowly massaging Rachel's back. It took them a while to realize that the driver was knocking on the window. They quickly zipped back up, and then Quinn pushed the button to lower the window.

"We're at Central Park."

"Oh, okay. Thank you Zed."

He opened the door to let them out.

"Thank you for your service tonight," Rachel said politely.

He smiled sheepishly. Quinn gave him the tips; he kind of bowed his head, "Have fun girls!"

Rachel interlinked their fingers and they walked slowly through Central Park back to the hotel, which was about 30 minutes walking distance. They didn't say much, just enjoying each other's company.

They were now standing in front of their room but both not wanting to go in and end the date. Quinn leaned on the wall and Rachel wrapped her hands around Quinn's neck. It was after midnight, so the hallway was empty.

"Quinn, I had the best night of my life. Seriously, this is now in the top spot," Rachel stressed the 'top'.

"So where does Cedar Point stand now?"

Rachel thought, "Probably third spot."

"What's in the second spot?"

"Well it can't _all_ be about you," Rachel smirked and Quinn laughed.

"I had the best time of my life too. I just wish that we would walk into an empty room."

"And then what?" Rachel smiled playfully.

Quinn blushed and looked at the floor, "I don't know. Danger zone, I suppose." She looked back at Rachel and played with her hair. "Have I told you how beautiful you are?"

"No, but please continue."

Quinn laughed but then her tone became serious, "Rachel, I think you're an angel. You're my angel. You save me, time and time again." Then Quinn looked at her sadly, "I am so sorry."

"Quinn it's okay. I've forgiven you."

"No, not that. Wait, you've forgiven me?"

Rachel nodded lightly.

Quinn smiled, "Thank you. But what I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry I didn't realize this sooner. It feels like we've wasted too much time and energy hating, or not liking each other. You're the most beautiful person I know and I'm sorry for taking this long to say this to you."

She leaned down to kiss Rachel, slowly and passionately. This time the kiss wasn't about uncontrollable hormones, but to convey their feelings for each other. Unfortunately, that was also the time that Finn decided to get some ice. The boys' room was opposite the girls' room. When he opened the door, he was too shocked to move after seeing the sight of his two ex-girlfriends kissing each other. They instantly stopped and looked at him.

He didn't know where to look. "Sorry." Then he hastily got back inside the room.

Rachel and Quinn both sighed. Then Quinn opened the door to their room and they walked into the sight of all of them watching an R-rated movie.

"Hey girls! We want to hear all about your date, but after this movie," Mercedes was too engrossed with the movie that she only gave them a glance.

"What movie is this?"

"Basic Instinct."

"Oookay, I'm going to bed," Quinn said.

Both Quinn and Rachel got ready for bed, separately of course. The movie ended not that long afterwards.

"I'm too sleepy now," Mercedes said while yawning, "So you have to tell us tomorrow."

They wanted to say no but kept quiet and hoped that they would forget about it tomorrow. Everybody had lied down on their beds. Rachel and Quinn looked at Lauren who was already lying in the middle of the bed.

"Can you move to the side?" Quinn asked annoyed.

"No."

"Well, where are we going to sleep then?"

"On either side of me. You don't think I'm going to let you two sleep next to each other, are you? I need my beauty sleep," Lauren closed her eyes.

Quinn wanted to protest but Rachel softly touched her arm. "Okay, I'll take the right side," and she lied down on the bed.

"Quinn, you're the last one standing, turn off the lights," Santana ordered.

Quinn glared at her and saw that Santana and Brittany were cuddling. Santana looked at her triumphantly. She took a deep breath to calm herself, turned off the lights and made her way to her left side of the bed. She turned to her side and grumbled. Then Rachel leaned over Lauren and said, "Good night Quinn."

"Hey, stay on your side," Lauren barked.

Rachel lied back down on the bed. "Good night Rachel," Quinn almost whispered.

The room was quiet for a few minutes, but then they heard the sound of lips smacking.

"Rachel, Quinn, stop making out. We need some sleep," Mercedes said loudly.

"It wasn't us. How can we with Lauren in the middle?" Rachel said annoyed.

Then they heard giggling from the other bed.

"Brittany, Santana, quit it."

"Hush Wheezy. Go to sleep."

Finally the room went quiet.


	26. Part 26

**Part 26**

Rachel was awoken by a gentle shake.

"Rachel, wake up, wake up."

She opened her eyes to see Kurt.

"We're going to 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'."

Rachel was still groggy, "What about Quinn?" Rachel asked while looking over at Quinn who was still sleeping. All the other girls were still sleeping too, except for Brittany and Santana who had mysteriously disappeared.

"I've told her. She knew about this."

But Rachel wasn't paying attention to what Kurt was saying. She was too caught up with Quinn's sleeping state.

"Look at her, she's so cute and she looks so innocent, isn't she?" Rachel fawned over Quinn and Kurt grimaced.

"Yeah, yeah, she's cute. Now, can you go take a shower?"

Rachel got off the bed to take her phone and took a picture of a sleeping Quinn.

"Erm … I'm not sure she would like that," Kurt said.

"Well, she didn't have to know then, isn't it?"

After that, Rachel finally took a shower and got ready for her morning outing with Kurt.

* * *

Quinn was reading a book on the bed. No one else was in the room, everyone else was doing their own exploration of the city, but she decided to stay there. She had overspent the night before anyway. The door opened, Santana and Brittany came over and took a seat on both of her sides.

"Well Q, now that you have joined the Sapphic Society, I think it's just about right that –"

Quinn was startled, "I'm flattered Santana but I won't have a threesome with you and Brittany."

"What?" Santana looked shocked and Brittany looked amused, "That's not … hmm … Q, what's going on in that head of yours? Is that all you've been thinking about nowadays?"

"No!" Quinn answered defensively.

"How far have you and Berry gone anyway?" Santana asked teasingly.

"It's none of your business."

Santana rolled her eyes, "Fine, whatever. Anyway, what I was about to suggest is a makeover. Now that you have finally embraced who you really are, I think you need a new look. Come on, you've had this hair ever since I've known you."

Quinn still looked unconvinced.

"Oh relax, it's just a haircut. It will grow back."

Brittany on the other side smiled and nodded her head.

* * *

Rachel and Kurt were late for the Glee Club practice. Mr Schue had booked the conference room for a few hours for their last practice session before the competition the next day. When they walked into the room, the practice session hadn't started yet. Mr Schue wasn't even there. Everyone was just chatting with each other. Rachel looked around for Quinn but she couldn't spot her. She noticed there were two blondes, one with long hair and the other with shorter hair. The long haired one was talking to Santana and the other one was talking to Mercedes. She walked over to Mercedes. Mercedes saw her, "Hi Rachel. How was the outing?"

The other blonde turned around to look at her. It was Quinn, with her new look. Rachel must have looked like a fish gulping out of water. Quinn smiled at her amusedly. She almost forgot that Mercedes had asked a question.

"Oh, the outing, yeah, it was great," she answered without looking at Mercedes.

"Oookay, I better leave you two alone," and Mercedes walked away. It looked like they had forgotten her presence.

"Your hair," Rachel didn't know what else to say.

Quinn suddenly became unsure, "Do you like it?"

"I love it," Rachel said and she touched the fringe. "It really looks good on you. I think you're pretty in any type of hair anyway." She smiled. Suddenly she stopped and looked around. "Hey, everyone's here."

"Yeah," Quinn wondered what Rachel had in mind.

"That means the room is empty," she gave Quinn that mischievous look that Quinn had learned by now meant only one thing.

Rachel walked away, and after a few steps, she looked back at Quinn as an indication to follow her. No one noticed that they had somehow left the room and made their way back to the girls' room.

Once inside, Rachel walked to the middle bed and sat down.

"Well Rachel Berry, what do you have in mind?" Quinn said playfully. She was still standing a distance away.

"I haven't reached my kisses quota for the day yet," she almost whined.

"What's the quota?"

"Hmm … I haven't set a number yet, but considering that at the moment the number of kisses is zero, it certainly hasn't been met."

Quinn chuckled, "Has anyone ever told you that you're demanding?"

Rachel huffed, "Are you just going to stand there or are you ever going to come here?"

Quinn smirked but she walked towards Rachel anyway. Once she was standing in front of Rachel, she pushed Rachel gently to lie down on the bed while kissing her the whole time. Together they moved bit by bit to the middle of the bed, all the while not breaking the kiss.

In the meantime, Mr Schue walked into the conference room and looked around, "Where's Rachel and Quinn?"

All of them looked around too and when they couldn't see Rachel and Quinn, they all had a knowing smirk, except for Finn who was fuming inside. It brought back the memory from last night. Unlike some guys who got turned on with the image of two girls kissing, it was the opposite for him.

"Let me look for them Mr Schue," Santana volunteered. She knew where to look, she had the same idea too but Brittany was too preoccupied before.

* * *

Santana quietly opened and closed the door. She tiptoed into the room. She could hear the sound of kissing and moaning and heavy breathing. She wondered if she would be treated to a slight case of nudity and she smiled, but then the thought of seeing them naked was horrifying and she frowned. Now she really hoped that they were still fully clothed.

She inched closer until she could see them on the bed. Quinn was on top of Rachel. She was kissing Rachel's neck and kissing her way down to Rachel's chest, only to the part that wasn't covered by her dress. Then she moved back up to kiss her neck right to her ear. Rachel's fingers were scrunching Quinn's hair. Santana wanted to laugh; Rachel must have really liked the new hair style. Quinn should thank her later. Quinn was sucking Rachel's earlobe and Rachel was loudly moaning Quinn's name. Santana arched her eyebrows; she sometimes wondered if Rachel's a screamer and this proved it. Then she saw Quinn went back to kissing Rachel's lips. Rachel quickly removed Quinn's cardigan without breaking the kiss. She almost threw it over to Santana's direction. Then her hands were about to lift Quinn's top and Santana thought that she should stop them now.

"Woah! For two virgins, well, a virgin and a lesbian virgin, you two sure looked pretty good at it."

Rachel and Quinn had both sat up. "What the hell are you doing here?" Quinn asked angrily.

"Mr Schue wanted to do a run through. You two better get your ass down there pronto." Santana turned to leave, but not before saying, "Oh Quinn, maybe I do want that threesome after all," and she walked out of the room.

Rachel looked at Quinn disbelievingly.

"What? No. I don't ever want to do a threesome, with anyone."

"Okay, good, because I don't like to share."

"I don't like to share either," Quinn said quietly.

Rachel looked at her dejectedly, "I think the universe is trying to tell us something."

Quinn nodded, "I thought we both agreed that we're not ready for this, but things sure got pretty intense quickly, especially just now."

"So we should thank Santana for stopping us?"

"Urgh, no. Who knows how long she had been standing there watching us?"

Quinn adjusted her top and Rachel picked up the cardigan that she had thrown. Quinn also stood up and Rachel helped put the cardigan back on her. Their closeness brought out the intense heat again, so Rachel quickly moved away and went to the mirror to fix her hair. She tied her hair back to ponytail. Quinn observed her from behind. Rachel saw the way Quinn was looking at her through the mirror. Their eyes met in the mirror and they both smiled. She turned around and gave Quinn's hair a bit of touch up. She had messed up Quinn's hair quite a bit.

* * *

After a few run through, Mr Schue finally called it a day and treated them to New York City's finest pizza. They didn't do much that night as they have a very early morning call the next day. All of them were currently hanging out in the girls' room watching 'Ratatouille'. Quinn chose to sit on the couch because all the space in the bed was taken. Rachel stood in front of her and made an indication for her to make some space. Even though the couch could fit two very skinny people, it was still a bit snug for them. Quinn had no choice but to turn her body to the side a bit and put her arm around Rachel. They might have walked hand in hand in Central Park, but this action felt a little too intimate for all the Glee Club to see. Quinn noticed all the quick glances from everyone. It was not that they were disapproving, they were still getting used to this display. Rachel didn't help matter either; she had linked their hands and put it on her thigh. Finn had been eyeing them every once in a while. Sometimes Finn caught her eyes, and then she would glare at him and he would quickly look away, but a few minutes later, he would look their way again. She knew she had no claim on Rachel, their status was still undecided, but that didn't mean that it was okay for Finn to make googly eyes at Rachel.


	27. Part 27

**Part 27**

The morning before the competition was chaotic, especially when you only have one bathroom for 7 girls. Buses were provided to take the show choir competitors to the venue. Rachel had been silent all morning and Quinn didn't want to interrupt her thought process because it looked like she was hyping herself for the competition.

They were currently taking their seats in the auditorium when Quinn realized that Rachel wasn't there.

"Has anyone seen Rachel?"

"I think she went to the bathroom," Tina said.

Quinn found Rachel in the bathroom; she was looking down and holding on to the sink. There was no one else there, so Quinn went over and rubbed her back.

"Hey, are you okay?" she voiced out her concern.

Rachel took a deep breath, "I know I've prepared myself for the big stage for what seems almost all my life, but being here now, for Nationals in New York City, it suddenly hits me just how big this stage is."

"Rachel," Quinn spoke softly, she ran her thumb on Rachel's cheek and turned Rachel's face to look at her, "you belong here, in the big stage, and that's where you perform the best. Sure, there are other good singers out there tonight, some you might even think outshined you, but Rachel, you outshine them all. Don't ever forget that."

Rachel was touched by Quinn's words, "You only said that because you like me."

"Yes, I do like you, well," Quinn blushed, "maybe more than that, but my point is, I said that because that's the truth. Mr Schue agrees with me. All the other Glee Club members will say the same, if they're willing to admit it. I've always thought this about you, but only now I can say it to you because I have nothing to hide."

"Thank you." Rachel wrapped her arms around Quinn's neck and gave her a quick kiss, "My kiss quota for the day hasn't been met yet," and she smiled that mischievous smile again.

Quinn smiled and shook her head, and then pulled Rachel closer and kissed her thoroughly. Being in a familiar setting, a bathroom, might have made them forgotten that they're not in McKinley's bathroom anymore and that they shouldn't be acting so freely. So when the door suddenly opened, they were both shocked with the interruption. They didn't pull apart though. An older lady was standing at the door and looking at them with a disgusted look.

"Kids nowadays have no morals."

"I'm just kissing my girlfriend, there's nothing wrong with that," Quinn responded, irritated with the lady's tone.

She quickly left the bathroom while looking at them angrily. This was the first time they had received a negative reaction. Quinn felt frustrated, but Rachel broke the tension.

"Girlfriend?" She asked amusedly.

Quinn then realized what she had said, "I mean … you know … a friend, who's a girl, so girl-friend." Quinn tried to cover it up.

"Well, if this is how you are with all your girlfriends, I do think we have a problem. Remember, I don't like to share," Rachel said playfully.

Quinn smiled and felt at ease again, but then Rachel's tone became serious.

"What am I to you?"

_My everything, _butQuinn wouldn't voice that out. It dawned on her though on what she was supposed to do. She licked her lips to prepare herself for what she was about to ask.

"Rachel Berry," she looked deeply into Rachel's eyes, "will you be my girlfriend?"

Rachel looked impressed that Quinn managed to say those words in one go, and she answered, "What took you so long?" She kissed Quinn but Quinn broke the kiss instantly.

"Is that a yes?" She asked confusedly.

"Like, duh." She tried to kiss Quinn again, but Quinn leaned away.

"Erm, is that a yes?" She looked at Rachel pleadingly.

"Yes Quinn. Yes, I would love to be your girlfriend. Now, can we get to the kissing?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you're demanding?"

Finally they kissed but were again interrupted with the sound of the bathroom door being opened.

"Oh My God you two! Can you stop being gross? We need to get ready now!" Santana said.

* * *

Quinn had been keeping an eye on Finn. She wondered if she should tell him that Rachel's her girlfriend now. _Wow! That sounds odd. Rachel's my girlfriend? How did that happen?_ Quinn's musing was interrupted by Mr Schue calling all of them for a pep talk. Right after that, they assumed their position backstage while waiting for their name to be called.

Quinn walked over to Rachel, "Hey, good luck," and gave her a gentle squeeze.

"Thank you," Rachel said, smiling nervously. From the corner of her eyes, Quinn could see that Finn was looking at them from the other side of the stage.

The music started and that's the cue for Rachel and Finn's entrance. She watched them from the side. She wondered why this couldn't be a solo. She saw Rachel and Finn gravitating towards each other while singing a love song and it didn't sit well with her. She knew she shouldn't be jealous, that this was just a performance, and that this was what Rachel does as a performer. But still she couldn't help herself, so she looked away. She took her spot behind Brittany, waiting for their cue to walk on stage. Finally it's their cue and the rest of the Glee Club walked on stage. It was a good thing that they had to turn their back on the audience; at least she didn't have to see what was happening behind her, because if she did, she would have probably marched over to Finn and kick his balls for daring to try to kiss her girlfriend. All she heard was gasped from the audience and the sound of feet shuffling like they were being pushed. It took a while before anyone clapped, but they finally did. She didn't have time to wonder what had happened because the second song had started. That performance went very well, the crowd went wild with their original song, and as usual, Rachel was great.

Once they were backstage, Rachel went over to Finn and poked his chest, "What the hell are you thinking?"

Quinn came over, "What's going on?"

Finn looked guilty and Rachel looked furious. "Sorry Quinn. Wait, I shouldn't be sorry. It's not like you and Rachel are real anyway?"

"What?" Quinn glared at him.

"Finn tried to kiss me."

Quinn felt flame rising in her chest and she pushed Finn, "How dare you tried to kiss my girlfriend?"

All the other Glee Club members had been listening to their conversation and they all raised their eyebrows and looked at each other at Quinn's proclamation.

"What? Huh? Girlfriend? When did that happen?" Finn looked stricken.

"Not that it's any of your business but just now. So you better keep your hands and eyes and lips away from her."

Rachel pulled Quinn away before things got worse. Finn stayed away from them after that. They went back to their seats to watch the rest of the performance and they noticed that the older lady that they met in the bathroom was one of the judges. They both looked at each other worried if the outcome of their performance would be affected with the exchange they had with her.

The result was posted on the board later and they came out 12th place. Rachel was shocked at how bad they were placed. Everyone else was too because some of the teams that were ranked higher than them were clearly not as good as them. They went back to the hotel for a post-mortem, and that was when Santana went amok. She was shouting things in Spanish to Finn, clearly blaming him on their lost. Rachel felt bad for Finn because she didn't think it was solely his fault. She couldn't keep quiet and let Finn took all the blame when they could have also lost because of what Quinn and she did.

"I'm sorry, but it might not be all Finn's fault," Rachel voiced out. Quinn gave her a look to tell her to shut up, but she continued, "One of the judges caught Quinn and I in the bathroom and she was very disapproving of it."

"I guess I don't have to ask what you two were doing," Santana had transferred her angry look to Quinn and Rachel.

"Look, we don't really know for sure why we lost. Our performance was great. If what Finn did or what Quinn and I did cause us this lost, I'm really sorry, but she was a bigot for judging us based on that if that were true."

Everyone went quiet.

"We have another shot next year and we will get that trophy," Rachel tried to lift their spirits, but everybody started moving around. The boys went back to their room and the girls packed their belongings because they were leaving in a few hours. Everybody was too bummed about losing to even be thinking about next year's Nationals.


	28. Part 28

**Part 28**

Rachel noticed that Quinn had been very quiet ever since they left the hotel. All of them were at the airport at the moment, waiting for their boarding call. They still have about 30 minutes left, so everybody had gone their separate ways and promised to meet at the gate later. Rachel walked over to Quinn before she too took off with the rest. She felt that Quinn had been avoiding her and she really had no idea why.

"Hey, you've been pretty quiet. Is everything okay?" Rachel asked unsurely.

Quinn didn't look at her and she just shrugged.

"Okay, what's going on?" Rachel was really worried now, "You've been giving me the silent treatment."

Quinn finally looked at her but she still didn't say anything.

"Quinn, the thing is about a relationship, you have to share what you're feeling. You can't expect for me to just figure out what it was that's bothering you, and you can't just keep them all inside. Please, tell me." Rachel ended it with a pleading tone.

Quinn stared at her for a while, clearly thinking what she needed to do, and then she made a gesture for them to go off somewhere, away from the crowd. They found an almost secluded spot.

Quinn crossed her arms and stared Rachel down, "Why did you tell everyone about what happened in the bathroom?"

Rachel was taken aback; she never thought that her action would make Quinn angry, besides in her mind she was doing the right thing.

"I just think that everyone should know that it might not be all Finn's fault."

"Does it matter now whose fault it is?"

"Umm … no."

"Will it change the outcome of the competition?"

"No."

"Then why do they even have to know about it?"

"Because I think it's important for people to know the truth, that it's not all Finn's fault," Rachel felt agitated.

"The truth," Quinn snorted, "all I see is you sticking up to Finn."

"Oh, so this is what it's about," it was clear to Rachel now why Quinn was angry.

"He tried to kiss you on stage. That's a big deal! He's sabotaging our chance of winning. And there you were, defending his action?"

"How was telling the truth meaning 'defending his action'? I never said what he did is okay!"

"Because you took his side and not mine!"

Rachel looked at her incredulously, "You think by doing that, I was taking his side?"

"It's clear that you're taking his side because you told everyone that we might have lost because of me."

"Quinn! How could you even come up to that conclusion?" Rachel felt like shaking Quinn for having these crazy thoughts.

"Well, you're shifting the blame on me. The way I see it, you're not on my side, which means you're on his side."

"What logic is that? I'm on the truth side."

"So you are saying that you're not on my side."

Rachel felt a headache coming in; it was like they had been talking in circles. "Okay, let me get this straight, do you want me to choose between you and Finn?" She decided to get to the point.

Quinn thought about it for a few seconds, and then she nodded, "Yes."

Rachel had also crossed her arms and spoke sternly, "I resent you for putting me in this position. First of all, you shouldn't even have to ask me to choose. The answer should be obvious enough. If you still have to ask 'who?' then maybe I should walk away right now. Second of all, the fact that you even ask me to choose …" Rachel shook her head and looked at Quinn with a hurt look.

Quinn was still being stubborn, "All I'm hearing is you still not willing to choose."

Rachel was furious now, "Finn is a good friend of mine. He may have his faults, but he is still a dear friend. If you want me to cut him loose just because of your insecurities, then you have a lot to work on. I don't want to be in a relationship where I have to constantly worry about your insecurities and your jealousy." Then Rachel softened her tone, "I don't want to lose you, but I'm not willing to lose him either. If you care enough for me, you wouldn't put me in this position."

Rachel walked away and left Quinn standing there looking angry.

* * *

Quinn only went to the gate when she heard the final boarding call. She wanted to avoid Rachel for as long as she could. She thought by avoiding Rachel, it would calm her down; instead all she did was imagining Rachel spending all that time with Finn right after she walked away. She kept on repeating what Rachel said in her head, and then she thought, _Was it so wrong to make Rachel choose? If Rachel really wants to be with me, shouldn't it be easy to stop whatever she's having with Finn? _

Quinn thought process gave her a migraine, so she tried reading her book, but she only managed to read a few paragraphs before her mind went there again.

When she boarded the plane; the rest of the Glee Club had already taken their seats. Everybody decided to keep the same seating arrangement like when they flew to New York; however Rachel had kept her window seat. She didn't even look at Quinn when Quinn walked to her seat. All of them noticed the tension between Quinn and Rachel, but they were kind enough not to ask anything. Quinn had previously thought the flight to New York was the worst she ever had, she had changed her mind. It was a good thing that she was still angry to feel sad about not being able to talk to Rachel. The bus drive from Columbus to Lima was just as excruciating to the both of them. Quinn took a seat at the back of the bus while Rachel sat with Kurt in the front row. Mercedes thought of sitting next to Quinn, but she knew that Quinn was the kind who needed her space.

They arrived at McKinley High around 10 at night and all their parents were already waiting at the parking lot. Rachel quickly got off the bus to meet her dads. They hugged her tightly because they missed her and they also knew how sad she must have been with the lost.

"Okay, let's go," Rachel said after Hiram put her bag in the trunk.

"Where's Quinn?" Leroy asked.

Rachel shook her head to say that she didn't want to talk about it. "Let's go," she said more firmly. Her dads understood.

When they were about to drive off, she saw Quinn finally got off the bus and was looking at her car, but Quinn quickly looked away.


	29. Part 29

**Part 29**

They still have the final exam week before the summer break. Quinn was walking down the hallway early Monday morning when she saw Rachel standing in front of her locker. She wanted to walk over to Rachel but her feet had somehow stopped moving. After a few minutes, she took a deep breath and turned around. She would have to take the longer way to get to her locker.

* * *

Rachel had just closed her locker and about to walk to her class when she saw a blur of Cheerio outfit and blonde hair disappeared around the corner. It saddened her how things had digressed. Just a few days ago, they had a romantic date in New York City and now they were not even talking to each other. But she wasn't going to budge. It wasn't her fault that all this happened. She had nothing to apologize.

* * *

The next time she saw Quinn was at the cafeteria. She was having lunch with Kurt while Quinn was having lunch with Mercedes.

"So what happened between you two?" Kurt wondered.

"We just had a fight," Rachel said solemnly.

"But you two just got together, you can't be breaking up already."

"We're not breaking up," Rachel quickly said, but suddenly she wasn't so sure anymore. "Well, at least I hope not," she said while looking at the back of Quinn's head.

Mercedes saw her and they exchanged a weak smile.

"What happened between you two? You two were all over each other just a few days ago and now you're not even talking." Mercedes was trying to probe the information out of Quinn.

Quinn looked sadly at her salad, she stabbed the celeries repeatedly. She didn't answer Mercedes, just merely shrugged.

"If you think we're angry about the lost, don't be. Rachel's right, if we did lost because of what happened … well, in the bathroom, then that judge is a bigot. Sure we're all bummed that we lost but we'll get over it. Besides, like Rachel said, there's still next year."

Quinn looked up at Mercedes slowly and thought about what she just said. She knew that Mercedes was right but that wasn't the real reason that she was upset, and she didn't even know how to voice it out.

"She said I'm insecure," she found it hard to get the words out; "like how could she even thought that _I_ am insecure. I'm the Head Cheerio, the most popular girl at McKinley, people part ways for me, and I can pretty much command guys to do whatever I want."

"So it must have been frustrating when she's not," Mercedes said matter-of-factly.

"What?" Quinn frowned.

"You know … do whatever you want."

Quinn huffed, "It's not that I'm asking for much."

"What do you want her to do?"

Quinn looked around to see if anyone was listening, "I don't want her to be friends with Finn. I don't see the point. She said he's a good friend, oh yeah, like what good has he done for her so far? Why is it so important for her to be friends with him?"

"Why don't _you_ want her to be friends with Finn?"

"Because … well, because, Finn and I used to date, then they used to date too. I don't know. I just find there are too many people in this relationship. And most of all, Finn still have feelings for her; he's been putting moves on her whenever he can. Who's to say that one day she'll not return it?"

"Okay! I'm going to make you stop right there," Mercedes stopped Quinn from going on her tirade. "Quinn, remember what you said in the beginning?" Quinn looked confused. "That she said that you're insecure and you said you're not, but then you sound like you're worried that she might return his feelings. So, what does that sound like to you?"

"That I'm thinking of possible outcomes?" Quinn looked annoyed.

"You know what I mean," Mercedes knew that Quinn didn't want to admit it, "that sounds like 'insecure' to me."

Quinn crossed her arms and leaned back on her chair.

"I might not be the best person to advice you on relationship. Sam and I are still pretty new and we're nothing like you two. You two are pretty intense; all I see is fire in your eyes. That's good but that could also easily cause rifts between you two. Come on, she's a drama queen and you're … stubborn." Quinn pouted; Mercedes was amused because she had never seen Quinn pouted. "Anyway, what I actually want to say is, one of the most important things in a relationship is trust. If you trust her, then it doesn't matter who she's friends with, Finn or Jesse or Puck," Quinn raised her eyebrows, "I'm just giving examples. The thing is you have to trust her, trust that she will never do that to you. So the question is do you trust her?"

Quinn couldn't look at Mercedes; she didn't have an answer to that. All this while she was worried that she could never gained Rachel's trust, but only now she realized that she didn't fully trust Rachel too. "I want to," she finally said.

"Well, another important thing about relationship is communication. You should talk to her."

"Why should I start?"

"Because someone has to, besides you look so miserable right now. Don't make me lock both of you in a room."

Quinn gave out a short laugh. "Thanks Mercedes."

Meanwhile, back in the other table, "Why don't you go talk to her?" Kurt was insisting.

"No, she's the one at fault. She should be the one to start it."

"Well, good luck with that," Kurt rolled his eyes. "Both of you are too stubborn for your own good."

* * *

Rachel closed her locker after getting the book she needed for her last class. When she turned around, she almost walked into Quinn, so she quickly stepped back. Apparently Quinn had been standing there waiting to talk to her.

"Hi," Quinn said slowly.

"Hi," Rachel said hesitantly.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine," Rachel was surprised that Quinn was making a conversation with her while there were still other students around, but no one seemed to bother much with their conversation. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," Quinn said while nodding her head. "So … are we okay?"

"Umm … it depends."

"On what?"

"Well, are you here to apologize?"

Quinn looked stunned, "Why should I apologize? You're the one who should apologize."

Rachel looked at her disbelievingly. She didn't want to go through the same argument, so she shook her head and walked away.

But Quinn followed her, "So is that it? I tried talking to you and you just walked away."

People were looking at them now but they went on their way because the sight of Quinn and Rachel arguing was a pretty common occurrence, even though they haven't done it for quite some time now.

"Because I know that it's going to be about the same thing. So there's no point of rehashing it."

"Well, if we're both thinking about the same thing, that you should have enough time to think about it and admit that you are at fault here."

Rachel was climbing the stairs while Quinn was trailing her from behind, but she suddenly stopped when she heard what Quinn had just said. She turned around to face Quinn.

"_I_ am at fault?"

"Yes, if you didn't do what you did then we wouldn't be in this position."

Rachel was completely baffled; she could feel her headache creeping in. She turned her back on Quinn and continued to climb the stairs. Quinn was still following her. Then she stopped and turned around again to face Quinn.

"Well, if you didn't put me in a certain position, then I wouldn't be this angry at you. And I am not at fault, _you_ are."

Rachel turned around again and walked up the stairs. Quinn was still rooted to the same spot; she too was confused with their conversation. The bell ring stopped her from her thoughts. She looked up the stairs and Rachel was already gone.


	30. Part 30

**Part 30**

They were both fully occupied with final exams. It was a good thing that both of them were high achievers and wouldn't let that fight interfered with their studies. They both have the same aim, to excel and to get out of Lima. They would occasionally bump into each other in the hallway and exchanged smiles, in the beginning it was forced but as the days progressed, the smiles were also accompanied with longing looks. They knew that somebody had to make the first move, but for now the exams was a priority.

Quinn sometimes thought of texting Rachel in the middle of her study session, but she would type a few words and quickly deleted it. On Wednesday, she decided to give Rachel a 'Good Luck' card; it had a bear holding a heart on the cover. She slipped it into Rachel's locker. Rachel also had the same idea, but Rachel made her own card. She made a Gold Star 'Good Luck' card. Rachel also dropped it into Quinn's locker.

Quinn was pleasantly surprised to get the card. She couldn't stop smiling the whole day. It made the exam week went much smoother, but it also caused her momentary loss of concentration, she would be writing her answers and suddenly her mind would take her to the card and other things. Right after her final paper, she only had one thing in mind. She had to talk to Rachel.

* * *

Rachel was happy that the finals were over and the summer break was officially on. She was clearing up her locker when Finn approached her.

"Hey, how's your final paper?" Finn asked.

"I think I did okay. What about you?"

Finn grimaced, "Erm, I hope I pass. Anyway, Puck's having this party tonight at his place to celebrate. Do you want to go?"

Suddenly his facial expression changed and he was looking at a certain direction. Rachel looked at the same direction and saw Quinn was coming her way but her eyes were throwing daggers at Finn.

"Go away." Rachel told Finn quietly.

"What?" Finn was hurt.

"Sorry Finn, but if you want to be my friend, you have to go away, now!" Rachel almost gritted her teeth.

Finn let out a heavy breath, but he nodded and walked away.

Rachel tried to act natural and continued to clear up her locker, and after a few seconds that felt like hours, Quinn finally stood next to her. Rachel waited for Quinn to say something but she remained quiet, so she chanced a glance and saw Quinn looked like she was debating on what to say. Finally she heard Quinn cleared her throat.

"Hi." Quinn said.

"Hi," Rachel gave a short smile.

She didn't say anything again for a few more seconds, and then Rachel heard a quiet sigh, "I'm sorry and I miss you."

Rachel's jaw dropped, but she quickly recovered. "What are you sorry about?"

Quinn bit her lip, "I'm hoping that we can talk about it later tonight. I would love for you to come over for dinner at my house tonight. That is if you're not busy with other things."

"You want me to have dinner with you and your mom?"

"Actually my mom's not going to be there. She had to go to Detroit this afternoon, some emergency with my aunt. She said she might come home tomorrow or Sunday."

"Oh, so just the two of us at your house."

"Yes."

"The whole night."

"Yes."

"I can't stay over, if that's what you think."

"What? No, that doesn't even cross my mind," Quinn quickly said.

"Really?" Rachel was surprised because it clearly crossed her mind the moment Quinn said they would be alone.

Quinn didn't know how to answer that.

"Just kidding, you don't have to answer that," she looked relieved. "Okay."

Quinn smiled, "Great, I can pick you up –"

"It's okay, I'm sure my dads would allow me to drive the car tonight."

Quinn took a pen and paper from Rachel's locker and wrote her address down. She passed the note to Rachel, "Maybe you can come at 6. I'll see you later."

Rachel stood there watching Quinn walked away. She wondered what made Quinn changed her mind. Missing someone could do that to you. She really missed Quinn and she was glad that Quinn made the first move because she was about to go crazy with this loss of contact. She had been hanging on for the past few days because the exams were keeping her busy, but if they were still fighting over the summer, she would have given up and made the first move then.

* * *

Rachel arrived a bit after 6. She was never that good with directions. Even with the help of the iPhone maps, she somehow managed to get lost. At the moment she was standing in front of Quinn's house and she felt very nervous. She thought about it, the last time she was alone with Quinn without anyone around was at her house, but then her dad had come home and interrupted them. But this time, there would be no interruption. She felt even more nervous at that thought, but then she reminded why she was there; it was because they needed to talk. The talk could have gone in any direction. And she also reminded herself that even if the talk went on a good direction, nothing would happen tonight except for dinner and talk. With that in mind, she rang the bell. Quinn opened the door after a few seconds.

"Hey," her smile was so bright that Rachel completely forgot that she was still angry at Quinn.

"Hi," her voice almost didn't come out, "this is for you." She gave Quinn a bouquet of flowers.

"Thank you," Quinn took the flowers from Rachel and grabbed her hand to pull her inside. She let go of Rachel's hand for a short moment to close the door, and then grabbed her hand again to show her around the house. Quinn showed Rachel the living room, entertainment room, library, backyard, garden, kitchen, and finally dining room where she pulled over a chair for Rachel to sit.

"I'm going to put these flowers in the vase. Don't go anywhere. Oh, unless if you want to go to the bathroom, which is right down there, the door to your left."

Rachel noticed that Quinn was nervous too, she was talking quite fast when she was showing Rachel all the rooms. It was cute. Quinn came back to put the flowers on the dinner table.

"I hope you're really hungry because I might have cooked too much food."

Then she left again to return with two plates that she set on the table. Quinn took a seat and Rachel was about to say something, but she suddenly stood up.

"Oh hang on, I forgot."

Rachel wondered what she could have forgotten. Quinn dimmed the lights, put two red candles on the table and lighted them. She was about to take a seat when she instantly stood up again.

"Sorry, I forgot one more thing."

She walked to one corner of the room and Rachel saw there's a turntable. She turned it on and the music of Billie Holiday was playing. Quinn was clumsy tonight that Rachel found it to be very endearing. She took her seat again and Rachel was just waiting to see if she was going to stand up again.

"Okay, I think I have everything," she said shyly. "So this is pasta with butternut squash, sage, and pine nuts."

"Emm, it sounds good already," Rachel took a mouthful, "Quinn, this is so good."

They both relaxed a bit once they started eating dinner, they talked about their final papers and the results they expected to get. It was a good thing that they were both into academic, because most people would prefer not to talk about exams after the school was over.

After dinner, Quinn cleared the table, she didn't let Rachel helped at all.

"Maybe we can move to the living room. I'll bring the dessert there."

This time Quinn remembered to dim the lights, light the candles and put on the music. Quinn went back to the kitchen and returned with a fondue pot that she set on a smaller table where you were required to sit on the floor. There were a few floor cushions that were already set around the table.

"Vegan chocolate fondue," she said to Rachel that was looking at her questioningly. "Come on, have a seat. I'm going to grab the fruits."

Quinn came back with a fruit bowl that contained strawberries, kiwis, oranges and apples.

"Wow!" Rachel was impressed.

"I think every end of finals should be celebrated with chocolate fondue," Quinn said.

"Yep, totally agree." They both laughed.

They both dipped their fruits into the pot. "So I guess we should talk," Quinn started. "I've been thinking a lot, about what you said, what I said, and … other factors. It sure made it harder to concentrate during study time." She looked at Rachel, "I'm sorry Rachel. I realized that I was wrong to make you choose, to give you some sort of ultimatum. I shouldn't have put you into that position. I should trust you enough that you will always make the right choice."

Rachel smiled warmly at her.

"Having said that, it's still hard for me to see you and Finn, and I may need time for that. Well, at least school's over, so you don't have to see him anymore," Rachel frowned, "I mean until school starts again."

"Quinn, this is Lima, I may still see him on the street or at the mall. Besides, he's still my friend. Maybe he wants to hang out and I can't just abandon him." Quinn gritted her teeth, so Rachel grabbed hold of her hand on the table, "But you always come first."

"Oh, so I just have to see you every day then," Quinn sort of joked.

Rachel laughed, "Don't you have to work this summer?" she said playfully.

"Oh yeah, luckily my mom wasn't as angry as I thought she would be. I think after the whole pregnancy thing, everything seemed mild compared to that. But she's working on a schedule for me this summer. I have to clean different parts of the house every day and do some gardening and groceries shopping and who knows what else, all during the time that she's at work."

"Well, two hands are better than one."

"What? You want to spend your summer doing household chores."

"I want to spend the summer with you," Rachel said softly and they smiled at each other. "By the way, what did you tell her about that whole spending?"

"I said I was trying to impress someone. Then she said why does a girl need to spend money on a boy? I didn't want to correct her. That will be a conversation for another day. So I just said it's the new age, equality and all," Quinn shrugged.

Rachel smiled, but then she licked her lips. She too had things she needed to say.

"I'm sorry too." Quinn looked at her. "I'm sorry that I make you feel that I was taking his side and not yours. I want you to know that I am always on your side, no matter what."

"Even when I'm wrong?"

"Yes, in front of people, but when we're alone, you might be in trouble," Rachel said teasingly and Quinn laughed, but then she put on her serious tone, "I put myself in your place, that if it's you who are still friends with your ex and spending time with him and singing with him, I'd probably do the same thing."

Quinn nodded; it looked like they might have reached an understanding. "So, we're good?"

"We're good."

She ate a strawberry and smiled at Rachel while chewing it slowly. Rachel dipped her apple slice in the sauce and put it in her mouth, all the while looking at Quinn.

"How's your apple?" Quinn's voice had become huskier.

"I wonder how your strawberry tastes like."

"Do want to have a taste?"

Rachel nodded slowly while leaning in to meet Quinn halfway. They kissed slowly, very slowly, that by the end of it, both of them have a mixture of apple and strawberry in their mouth.

"Which one do you like better?"

"I'm not sure. I think I need more tasting to be sure," Rachel smiled seductively.

Quinn dipped a strawberry into the pot and held it in front of Rachel's mouth, but Rachel didn't take it fast enough that some of the chocolate sauce dripped on her chin.

"You're so messy," Quinn said before she licked the sauce off from Rachel's chin. Rachel's eyes turned wild. She was still chewing the strawberry. Then she took a kiwi slice, dipped it and fed it to Quinn. They kissed again, but always stopped before things got too heated. This went on for a while until the bowl was almost empty. They didn't talk much but laughed most of the time.

The kiss was longer this time and Quinn pushed Rachel to lie down on the cushion. She took the last fruit in the bowl, a strawberry, with her fingers and dipped it in the pot, completely covered it with the chocolate sauce. Then she quickly hover it over Rachel's mouth who was about to eat it but Quinn moved it out of reach. Instead she ran the chocolate covered strawberry from Rachel's chest to her neck, then to her chin and straight into her mouth. Rachel took the strawberry and Quinn's fingers into her mouth and sucked her fingers slowly before releasing them. Quinn then ran her thumb on Rachel's lower lip while she kissed and licked the trail of chocolate sauce that she created, right to Rachel's lips. After minutes of long passionate kiss, Quinn pulled away. She closed her eyes and touched their foreheads together while trying to control her breathing. Rachel was also breathing heavily; she kept reminding herself that nothing more should happen tonight.

After their breathing had even out, Quinn opened her eyes and hovered over Rachel. Her fingers played with Rachel's hair and ear. Rachel had never seen her eyes looking like this before, Quinn was looking at her softly and her eyes were full of love, but she didn't want to make that assumption.

"What?" she asked softly.

"Rachel," she felt that she could hear or feel Quinn's heart beating faster, "I love you," Quinn looked almost sad saying it, that she tried looking at her fingers that were playing with Rachel's hair right after she said it.

"Hey," Rachel pulled her face to look at her, "I love you too Quinn."

They both smiled and shared another passionate kiss. When they broke apart, Quinn said, "We both lost this year, we lost Nationals, I lost Prom Queen –"

"But we found each other."

"And that's better than any price in the world."

They looked at each other lovingly.

"You haven't shown me your room," Rachel's tone was seductive and also hopeful.

"You want to see my room?"

Rachel stood up and held her right hand for Quinn to take, "Please show me."

Quinn blew off the candles and took hold of Rachel's hand. Rachel pulled her up and together they walked hand in hand to her room.

**THE END**

_**Author's Notes: **Thank you everyone for the wonderful reviews. I'm sure some might not be happy with the happy ending, but I'm a sucker for happy ending, how could I let my girls suffer! :-D_


	31. Part 31 (Alternate Ending)

**Part 31 (Alternate Ending)**

**_Author's Notes:_**_ This is dedicated to those who don't think Quinn deserves a happy ending after that awful thing she did to Rachel. If it is a happy ending that you're looking for, then stop right here! Consider the original Part 30 to be the ending. I consider that to be the real ending anyway. This is just to see what could have happened in the alternate universe with Alt!Rachel and Alt!Quinn that went through similar situations._

**_A/N 2:_**_ Pretty much everything that happened in Part 30 happened, until this part…_

"Rachel," she felt that she could hear or feel Quinn's heart beating faster, "I love you," Quinn looked almost sad saying it, that she tried looking at her fingers that were playing with Rachel's hair right after she said it.

Rachel smiled; Quinn had finally said the magic words. "Say it again," she almost demanded.

Quinn looked at her, "I love you," she said it shyly this time.

"Again." Rachel wanted Quinn to say it with conviction.

Quinn's face turned serious, her eyes bore deeply into Rachel's soul. "I love you Rachel Berry. I'm so in love with you that I can't imagine my life without you."

Rachel pulled Quinn down for a deep passionate kiss. When they broke apart, Rachel still had her eyes closed. She took a few deep breaths before she quickly sat up and gave Quinn a quick kiss, "Good."

Then she stood up and grabbed her handbag.

"Where are you going?" Quinn had stood up too and looked completely confused. Rachel was already walking towards the front door, so Quinn chased after her. "Rachel, what's going on?" Quinn asked while blocking the door, Rachel was about to reach the doorknob.

Rachel looked annoyed, "Well, let me break it down for you. You think you had me played and you think you played me well, but what you didn't realize was that you are the one being played all along."

Quinn was shaking her head, "What? What are you saying? Rachel, this is not making any sense."

"What part of it that didn't make any sense?"

"This is not you. You're not this person. Rachel, if this is your way to show the errors of my way, I take it. I completely understand. I have wronged you time and time again, but I swear that I will never cause you any more unhappiness … umm, at least not intentionally. Rachel, I just want to make you happy," Quinn sounded desperate.

Rachel snorted, "Oh My God Quinn, don't you get it? I am making a statement, and the statement is I can play this game better than you."

Quinn found it hard to breath, her vision was blurry. She tried to blink away the tears and hoping that it would wake her up from this nightmare, but the only thing she saw was Rachel's angry stare. She tried to hold Rachel's hand but Rachel stepped away.

"This can't be all games to you," Quinn raised her voice, "You're into this relationship as much as I am, the way you look at me, the way we kiss, this … Rachel … I …"

Rachel smirked, "I guess I am a good actress then."

Quinn's face had turned red; her breathing was ragged, "So you were acting all this while. Is that what you're saying? That you put yourself through all this so that you could get me back?" She gritted her teeth, but somehow she went back to pleading tone, "Rachel, I know you feel something for me."

Rachel wasn't looking at her, "Maybe, but I could never love you Quinn. You've hurt me too much for too long." Rachel could feel her heart began to tighten too; she needed to make her exit now. She glanced at Quinn and saw that tears were already streaming down her face.

"Rachel, please," Quinn tried to grab hold of her hand again and she raised her arms to tell Quinn to back off.

"You think you could trick me. Well Quinn, the trick is on you," Rachel said before she quickly opened the door and made a run to her car.

Quinn was too stunned with the whole sudden turn of event to even chase Rachel. She heard the sound of Rachel's car leaving her driveway and she felt her world crumbling down as she sunk to the ground.

**THE END**

**_Author's Notes: _**_I don't think I want to write sad endings anymore. Writing this makes me very sad :-( Anyway, if you read this anyway and you wish that your mind wasn't tainted by this, that you are still looking for that happy ending, then just imagined that at the end of this, Quinn woke up from her nightmare to see Rachel sleeping soundly by her side, that she was very relieved that it was just a nightmare, but then she remembered that Rachel wasn't supposed to sleep over and they would get into a lot of trouble with Papa Berrys, but that would be a problem they would face another day. Then Quinn lied down and hugged Rachel tightly and never wanted to let her go._


	32. Epilogue

_**Author's Notes: **__This is of course the epilogue for the happy ending aka Part 30 :-)_

**Epilogue: How Mama Judy Found Out**

Summer had been good so far. Even though Quinn had to spend a lot of time at home doing all the chores that her mother had set up for her, it wasn't all that bad. In fact it was quite fun because Rachel was there to help her, or mostly to spend time with her. They tried not to make it obvious that Rachel had been coming a lot, so Rachel tend to come after Judy had gone to work and left before Judy came back from work. Occasionally she would have dinner with the Fabrays and occasionally Quinn would also have dinner with the Berrys. They acted all coy whenever Judy was around, which Judy found quite confusing because they were best friends but yet they seemed reserved at times. They were not much different in front of Hiram and Leroy too, although Quinn was more relaxed in the Berry's household. Besides Hiram and Leroy were always so hilarious and they loved to make both girls laugh. Not to say that it was strained in the Fabray's household, it was just that Quinn was always worried that her mother would figure out the nature of their relationship.

For this day, Quinn was tasked to clean the lounge and to 'beautify' it, the exact word that Judy used. She had told her mom that Rachel would be coming over to help her with the task because Rachel was more artistic in that sense. So they had spent quite a bit of time rearranging things in the lounge.

Currently Quinn was going through the magazines and newspaper stacks that needed to be recycled and Rachel was rearranging the music CDs as they had moved them to another corner of the lounge. Quinn had finally got rid of all the old newspapers and magazines that she didn't need, so she was checking Rachel's progress with the CDs.

"Rachel, are you just putting these CDs without any order?" Quinn thought that Rachel would be someone who likes order, so it really confused her when they looked like they were arranged without any thought process.

"They are in order," Rachel was annoyed with Quinn's lack of understanding.

"What order? They're all over the place. Like why would you have David Bowie next to Led Zeppelin? And then you have Adele over here and she's next to Nina Simone?"

"Well, these are the classic rock and these are the blues section," Rachel pointed them out as if the answers were obvious.

Quinn laughed and shook her head, "This is not the CD store, you don't have to order them that way."

"Why not? It will be easier to find the CDs you want."

"Wouldn't it be easier to find them if they're in alphabetical order?"

"But that's boring," Rachel pouted.

"Maybe so, but if I want to listen to Bruce Springsteen, I just have to go to S and not wonder what genre he's in."

"Well, he's in the rock section."

"So when are they in rock and when are they in classic rock?"

Rachel wanted to say something but she didn't quite know how to answer it, "Okay fine, they will all sit in the rock section then."

"Okay, where would you put The Beatles?"

"Umm … oldies?" Rachel wasn't confident with her answer.

"Would it be right to categorize all their music to just one genre?"

"No," Rachel knew that she was about to lose this match.

"Like 'A Hard Day's Night' would probably fall under pop, 'Sgt. Pepper's' maybe … psychedelic rock, and then 'Abbey Road' is more rock," Quinn said while picking up each of the CDs.

"Ehem," Rachel just nodded her head in agreement.

"So, wouldn't it be complicated to put all these Beatles' CDs in different sections? Like when my mom wants to listen to them, she actually has to think of which genre they're in."

"Yeah …" Rachel looked at Quinn to show that it shouldn't be a hard thing to do.

"But wouldn't it be easier to just find them under B and probably order them by year?"

Rachel crossed her arms, "Music is not challenging in the Fabray household," and she stuck her tongue out. Quinn giggled at Rachel's adorableness. "When we move to New York, I want to have complete control of our music section."

"_Our_ music section?"

"What? You want to have your own collection?"

"Who said I want to live with you?" Quinn said playfully. "I can imagine the whole place will be pink and you'll be using all the hot water. I probably have to wake up really early everyday just so that I can use the shower."

"I don't take long shower," Rachel whined.

"Rachel, last time I have to wait for one hour. We almost miss the movie."

"I just want to look the best for you," Rachel said softly while giving Quinn the puppy dog look. She knew that look always made Quinn cave in. She draped her arms around Quinn's neck.

"Oh yeah, just be thankful that I like you enough to be that patient," Quinn had also wrapped her arms around Rachel.

"I believe that you more than like me," Rachel said almost proudly.

"Hmm, it depends."

"On what?"

"Law of diminishing returns."

Rachel looked at her funny, "How can you apply economic law to this?"

"Well, the law states that by continuing a certain effort towards a particular goal, the effectiveness declines after a certain result has been achieved, to put it simply. So your goal is to look your best for me and to achieve that, you take long shower, which was effective in the beginning, but as the shower becomes longer and longer, my love also becomes lesser and lesser." Quinn was trying to keep her serious face but Rachel could see a smile cracking up.

"So what does it take to increase your love exponentially?"

"Sex," Quinn said with a straight face.

Rachel burst out laughing.

"Lots and lots of sex."

"But wouldn't that require long showers afterwards?"

"Oh yeah, so it's pretty much a repeat process."

"We are never leaving our apartment."

"Never."

They were both laughing madly. Then Rachel pulled Quinn down to kiss her and that was when they heard a loud crash in the dining room. They pulled apart and looked at the direction of the noise.

* * *

Judy had left work an hour earlier. She had completed everything that needed to be done for that day and her boss had let her left early to get some much needed rest as she had been working hard for the past few weeks. She bought some Chinese for dinner and also some vegan meal for Rachel. She couldn't be bothered to cook that day. When she arrived home, she entered through the kitchen door. She set the food on the counter and went to look for Quinn and Rachel. She heard their voices in the lounge, so she headed towards that direction. She wondered what sort of beautification they had done.

From the kitchen, she had to pass through the dining room to get to the lounge, and that was when she heard their conversation. For some reason, she didn't feel like interrupting their interesting topic of conversation about music genre. But then the talk had moved to shower and … something else … and … _sex_? After that all she heard was the sound of them kissing. She was so shocked that her first reaction was to step backward, which caused her to bump into the dining table, which in turn caused the flower vase on the table to roll off and smashed onto the floor.

She instantly tried to clean up the mess, and that was when Quinn and Rachel came over to see her hunching down to pick up the broken pieces.

"Mom! Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah, I just accidentally knocked this off the table. Oh well, I never like this vase that your grandma gave anyway," Judy wasn't really looking at them; she was concentrating on cleaning up the mess.

Quinn went to the utilities closet to pick up the broom while Rachel helped Judy with the scattered flowers. All three of them worked quietly for a few minutes, and after that Quinn looked at Judy, "Mom, what are you doing home early?"

"My boss allowed me to go home early today, he said I needed the rest," she spoke to them both; her eyes were rapidly moving from Quinn to Rachel and back to Quinn. "I also bought dinner. I have some vegan food for you Rachel. Please stay for dinner. Hey, why don't we have dinner now? I'm hungry. You two must be hungry too. Let me grab the food." Then she left them to go back to the kitchen.

"She saw us," Quinn was panicking.

"We don't know that."

"Really Rachel? Look at the way she acted. I think you should go now."

"What? She invited me to stay for dinner. I can't just leave," Rachel was a bit angry that Quinn was dismissing her that easily.

"Don't worry, I'll make something up."

Rachel was about to answer but Judy's voice from the kitchen cut her off, "Can you two please set up the table?"

Rachel glared at Quinn who was trying to avoid her eyes. They moved in silent, Quinn set up the placemats and glasses and Rachel set up the cutleries. Judy walked in later with the food that she had transferred to dinner plates.

They ate their dinner in silent. Quinn was too nervous to even look at Rachel; she was looking down at her food the whole time. Rachel had been stealing glances at her, and sometimes she would also look at Judy. Judy on the other hand was constantly looking at Quinn and sometimes she would look at Rachel too. It was a very awkward dinner.

Judy broke the silence, "So what have you two been up to today?"

"Nothing," Quinn answered defensively.

"Well, we've rearranged the couch and bookcases in the lounge to give it more space," Rachel tried to cover Quinn's behavior.

"Oh, that's good." They were silent again. "So Rachel, what else are you going to do this summer? Are you not going anywhere with your dads?"

"Yes, in a few weeks we're going to Boston to visit my uncle there."

"That's good. You've been spending too much time here helping Quinn with her 'punishment', which she should have completed on her own," Judy stressed the last part while looking at Quinn. "She did overspend in New York. Do you know anything about that?" Judy was looking at Rachel again.

Rachel swallowed her food hard, "Hmm?" She looked at Quinn who had turned a few shades paler but was still not looking at her.

"Oh, you know, when Quinn's in New York, she spent a lot of money renting a limo. You would know what she did with the limo. She said she was trying to impress someone. Who is this person that she's trying to impress?"

"Umm … I …" Rachel was almost gasping for air. For some reason, she wasn't that sharp today, that she couldn't make up some stories on the fly.

"Quinn wouldn't tell me. This person must be pretty special for her to be willing to spend this beautiful summer cleaning up the house. But then I would think if that person is special, that person would have been here to help Quinn, don't you think so?" Judy directed the question to Rachel.

"Mom, what are you doing?" Quinn finally broke her silence.

"I was hoping that Rachel can tell me because you wouldn't. I mean, with all that money you spent and all the time you've spent indoor these past few weeks, it would be a shame if all your effort had gone to waste," Judy finished it off with a sip of her wine.

"I think you already know the answer," Quinn was looking at her hard.

"What answer?" Judy was playing dumb.

"Fine, you want me to say it, don't you?" Quinn stood up, "It's Rachel, okay. I love her. You can kick me out of the house but it won't change how I feel." Rachel was too stunned to say anything. Judy was also struck by Quinn's sudden temper.

"Quinn, honey, please sit down," Judy spoke softly to her but Quinn wasn't budging. She looked between her mom and Rachel. "Quinn, please." She saw Rachel gave a quick nod, so she took a seat. "I'm not going to kick you out. I am not your dad and I will never make that mistake again." Judy grabbed hold of Quinn's hand to calm her down. "I'm sorry if I go about that the wrong way; I just want to hear it from you." She looked at Rachel too. "Yes, I was surprised, very surprised. I mean, I never thought … But anyway, I've seen the changes in Quinn for the past few months, even more apparent in the past few weeks. She's happier," she squeezed Quinn's hand, "jovial, she smiles more, laughs more, which begs the question, how long has this been going on?"

"Umm … not that long, maybe since … March," Quinn answered tentatively.

"And you've kept this from me all this time?"

"I don't know how you will react. I'm scared that you … that you won't love me anymore."

"Oh Quinn, I will always love you." Judy pulled Quinn up for a hug. Rachel watched the exchanged between them happily that she shed a tear; she bit her lip so that the tears wouldn't flow. After they broke the hug, they took their seat again. "Okay, just because I'm accepting of this relationship, it doesn't mean that I'm ready to see it in full force. So, none of whatever happened in the lounge in front of me. Well, at least give me time to take all this in."

Quinn and Rachel nodded their understanding.

"And we better have some house rules. Like … no sleepover."

"Mom!" Quinn looked at her disbelievingly.

"What? Even if you have a boyfriend, I wouldn't allow him to have a sleepover."

Quinn wanted to protest but she knew that her mother was right.

"Whenever you two are in your room, you should leave the door open. In fact it would be better if you two could spend your time not in your room."

Quinn frowned but she kept quiet.

"Rachel, you're welcome to come here, but I'm sure your dads have set a curfew. So it's better if you keep that. And talking about your dads, we still haven't arranged the date for dinner. I'm guessing they know about you two?"

Rachel nodded.

"That's good. When they're here, we have a lot of things to discuss then. Maybe they would like to come to dinner this Sunday night?"

"Okay, I'll ask them."

"Good, that's settled then," Judy smiled contentedly; she thought that she had covered everything for now. "Okay, I'm really tired now and I really need a long bath. Can you girls please do the clean up?"

"Sure mom."

They waited until Judy had walked out of the room before they looked at each other.

"Well, that's not so bad," Rachel smiled at Quinn.

"Yeah, surprisingly enough," Quinn didn't look as happy as Rachel though.

"See, you're worrying for nothing."

"She did freak out in the beginning, and didn't you hear?"

"What?"

"That when your dads come over for dinner, they'll have a lot of things to discuss, and they'll set all these rules; we might as well be living in a boarding school."

"All girls' boarding school … hmm, I would love to see you wearing that uniform," Rachel said seductively.

"Rachel, my mom's in the house. Let's not go there."

Rachel laughed at Quinn's facial expression. Most of the times she just loved saying inappropriate things just to make Quinn blushed. She walked over to Quinn and sat on her lap.

"Rachel, my mom, remember?" Quinn was panicking again.

"You, lady, need to relax. Your mom's taking a long bath; she wouldn't come down here for a while. Look on the bright side here; we can be ourselves in front of all the people that matter."

Rachel looped her hands around Quinn's neck; her thumb stroked the back of Quinn's neck. She found the spot a few days ago. She found out that whenever she rubbed that spot, Quinn would instantly calm down from whatever 'panic attack' she was having. Quinn closed her eyes and sighed. Rachel smiled at the instant effect she had on Quinn.

"Thank you," Rachel said while still massaging Quinn's neck.

Quinn opened her eyes and looked at her questioningly, "For what?"

"For standing up to me, for yourself, for telling your mom about us, for your _unabashed_ declaration of love," Quinn blushed, "for everything that you are." Rachel stopped rubbing her neck and ran both her hands through Quinn's hair to cup her face. "I love you so much."

"I love you too."

Rachel could never get tired of hearing those words, she grinned widely and leaned down to give Quinn a very passionate and tender kiss.

Who knows what their future might bring, but for now everything was right in their world.

**THE END**


End file.
